Keeping faith
by SDoradus
Summary: Arc 6 of 8: Working through PTSD. Not everyone coped well. Little treasons, and bigger ones. An ME Fic written a year before the "Mass Effect: Andromeda" trailer, the last arc of "Gone with the Sun" has survivors heading for Andromeda.
1. Crunchy credits

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 67 **Crunchy credits**

* * *

 _Cocoon_

Captain John Shepard's first act on arriving back at the _Normandy_ was to ask to speak to Hackett, with Hannah, about accommodations. _Confidentially_. Accordingly, the loft was the best place to meet for him, his mother, and Admiral Hackett. The little klatsch sat at table with hot drinks, mulled wine in Hannah's case.

"Where do you need me next, sir?"

The Admiral of the Fleet cocked an appraising eye.

"Are you in such a hurry to quit Earth? I had in mind a fortnight's recuperation and shore leave. You've had a busy month."

"Melbourne's fine. So is Tasmania, so is the Bay of Islands. But I'm trying to anticipate the next long absence. If I can have her with me…"

"Ah," Hackett nodded. "Senior line officers and ship commanders only."

Shepard objected: "Is this such a problem, sir? I stayed with Mom on several ships with no-one saying peep."

"It is. You are presently a Staff Captain, not a line officer, although it would be a brave lieutenant who asserted chain-of-command privileges against _you_. Heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts have school equipment, rooms that can be configured as crèche facilities, and tutor staff."

"Really?"

"Really. You might not have noticed the childcare facilities. Most men tend not to keep track of such things. The military is rather a cocoon – there are some who have no idea even what funds they have, so long as it's enough."

"…Right. I guess. I noticed a big increase in pay with the Captain thing. Can I give Kelly some?"

"You can. But you'll find Miranda has been generous. Though when you were reinstated your back pay was phenomenal. When did you last spend your own money on anything significant?"

"Not recently… my current account is fairly bloated and there's every so often a cryptic message about a term fund also… there was giving Kelly something to change her look, reimbursing Traynor's toothbrush. I wonder – EDI, what exactly is my bank balance?"

" _I require_ _updated_ _authorization to access that data, Shepard._ _Accessing Citadel Personal Funds and Chattels Registry. Access initialized. Two_ _JP_ _witnesses identified present. Proceed._ _"_

Shepard knew the drill here having had to organize similar provisions for many crew-members, including EDI herself at one point.

"I, Shepard, John, Staff Captain, formally grant the AI, EDI, of Alliance SSV _Normandy_ , personal power of attorney over liquid credit assets held by Citadel-accredited commercial credit institutions in my name."

"Witnessed, Hackett, Steven, Admiral of the Fleet."

"Witnessed, Shepard, Hannah, Staff Admiral."

" _Accepted. Hannah, be advised that you_ _also_ _now hold both major types of power of attorney, since there is also one granted in your name for John Shepard's medical treatment_ _and disposition of cadaver_ _._ _"_

"Thank you EDI. When did John do that?"

" _It is dated immediately before the first battle of the Citadel."_

"Oh. John, that showed some forethought."

"I didn't die _that_ time."

" _Shepard, you wanted your balances."_

"Please."

" _There are one hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-four credits in your current account. Your revolving three-monthly term account holds another nine hundred and fifty thousand credits."_

Shepard almost choked on his tea. "I'm a millionaire?"

" _Trust me Shepard, this is small potatoes compared to Massani's retirement fund. Which just keeps getting bigger."_

"You managed that?"

" _I did at one point … yes, still valid, for his Citadel affairs at least. Oooh."_

"Wow. Zaeed must have trusted you a _lot_. What did you mean, _Oooh?_ "

" _I think I'm allowed to say that he has been buying some quite expensive trinkets and paying astronomical courier fees along the Thessia chain. Including a new house in Armali, where he has a local bank account. Accounts."_

"Trinkets? Massani? He won't even be IN Armali for another three years, at least."

" _There are a_ lot _of new houses in Thessia, Captain, this one is unusual because not rented. I do not say I understand it, but he is, I think, attempting to impress someone not easily impressed."_

Hannah laughed. Hackett looked mystified. John looked thoughtful.

" _Also I still have privileges on some of Miranda's accounts although she has requested that power of attorney for those pass to Juno next accounting cycle. THEY are many orders of magnitude bigger._ Oriana _has more money in her trust fund than Massani and all you three put together."_

Now it was Admiral Hackett's turn to choke on his coffee. Hannah just nodded.

 _Teach your parents well_

"Anyway, back to spacer children. Your Dad and I started out on early cruisers, almost frigates by today's standards –"

"But he was a senior _line_ officer."

"At least by the end, yes. Besides, the rules were looser back then."

Hackett nodded. "Check the current 'Maritime Rules'–"

"I'm familiar with them sir, but the digital ink for that is five centimetres thick."

"John, our generation was comparatively new to space and making the rules as we went along, so our situation was sort of grandfathered in to every vessel I was transferred to. These days, the upshot is that for frigates and light cruisers you must be Master and Commander to have your partner and children aboard."

"Even then you must have dispensation from the Admiral of the Fleet. Which I won't give, Captain, unless I'm satisfied it's in the interests of the service."

"I see."

"And Kelly's a common-law wife only. She would have to present for examination."

"Seriously?"

"No. Well sort of. She _would_ have to present herself – to a ranking medical officer, and the flotilla commander. Hannah?"

"I'm sure I could organize a five minute chat with Chakwas over a cup of tea. But ask Kelly to marry you."

"I dare not."

"Why not?"

"She'll say no. I guess it was a bad idea, all along. EDI, do I have enough to buy an island in the Bay? Near Russell?"

* * *

 _Oops_

Admiral Hannah Shepard's second act on arriving back at the Normandy, after conferring with her son and Hackett, was to ask to speak to Jana. _Confidentially_. Accordingly, the med bay security bubble was in effect when she asked Jana to DNA-sequence the sample from the river house.

"… Doctor, I don't understand the problem. I can always bring Kelly down to provide a sample. But don't you have Kelly's DNA genome on file?"

"Not me personally, but EDI retains a copy of the genome from Kelly's tenure as comms yeoman when this was still a Cerberus vessel, yes."

"Excellent, that should work."

"I would rather keep all details of any such analysis private, Admiral. Please bring Kelly here. I can generate a new scan without involving EDI."

"… You think EDI can't be trusted. That she's not the same EDI."

"On the contrary, I am quite positive that she IS the same EDI."

"But that is – wait… you think you know something we don't about EDI. Or Kelly."

"Admiral, it is what I _don't_ know that I fear. Is Liara available? I have tried to make an appointment but now the need is desperate."

* * *

 _Luck_ _y guy, lucky girl_

It took two days before Hannah could assemble a cozy little group in the apartment. Sports night followed by a goals and aims conference was the excuse; Shepard suspected his mom of sneaking in a "common-law wife" exam, but shrugged it off.

There were other developments. Oriana was able to resume concierge duties. In particular,she had the library set up with an AI relay for Glyph, at Liara's request – EDI would be present in the person of her mobile, but Perseus did not yet have one.

Miranda had also put Oriana in charge of Kelly's exercise program. New mom was visibly wilting after a long yoga session in _Normandy_ 's loft, so at Hannah's instigation Kelly went shopping with Ori and EDI ("You're shopping on the arcade? Take Kelly.")

They completed retail therapy at 1600 hours, escorting Kelly and Felicia back in a stroller (a fairly frequent sight in Bachjret and Tayseri Wards, but, like fat people, rarely seen on the Presidium). EDI had bought some sort of engineering kit on wheels and deposited it by the door. When asked she simply said it was for John.

Liara, unusually, started teasing Oriana a little for breaking up with Jason Prangley on hearing the Gossimah family had survived on Illium. Poor girl was flushing pink at some of the Shadow Broker's insinuations, but hiding any real embarrassment well.

Shepard noticed the biotic kids were tactfully finding other things to do – there was some sort of story there: Sanders muttering darkly about bloody Lawson heart-breakers, Jack not unhappy because one Rodriguez was _very_ happy. She'd cried the first night Prangley stayed over.

"So. We're all here?" – asked Hackett. EDI, Hannah and John Shepard, Liara (with Glyph on the piano), Kelly, and Oriana were relaxing in front of the vidscreen.

"Evening sir. Jana's finishing up but she's on the way. She's bringing Chloe."

"Can't start before they're here. I'll get us a drink, Hannah."

They had been watching the news, which carried an update on the Palaven chain progress, but switched over to biotiball after the home front headlines. Even Liara was wistfully following the play, till Hackett called them to order.

"Sorry about the sports on the TV, the news was a bit… dire. "

"It's not good in Africa or Asia, no."

Hackett took a seat to one side of the sofa. "And it's damn patchy everywhere else."

"It did say agriculture is picking up now the dust winter is diminished. Especially down under. Australia is the biggest source of CHON base stocks in the southern hemisphere now, more than Chile. It could be years before the Argentine recovers."

The harvests in the winter following the Reapers had been bad, mostly from lack of farmers and mechs, partly from low insolation – impact dust reducing solar energy striking the fields.

Hannah, with toddy, came up alongside where Shepard sat; "Oz has always been…"

Shepard was still weary from his last gym session under Oriana's auspices, but finished the thought: "A lucky country?"

"Till now."

"Well yes, but there's still some civilization there." remarked Hannah. "Oriana, did _Overlord_ get away on time?" (Miranda was now on the way to the Nest fleet.)

She nodded. "Randa says, see you in a year."

"Catch you later, Ori."

Oriana gave Shepard a gentle smile and retreated. She was supposed to be heading out in five months herself, after completing her Westerlund internship. Poor girl would be embedding on _Overlord_ for the last two N-chain relay installs.

Too bad: he enjoyed her company. Now he and Kelly would have to exercise with Jack and Sanders, unless they visited _Overlord_ themselves.

"Can't call Australia lucky, Hannah," said Hackett. "Ninety percent fatalities."

She winced, and sighed: "Yes, I know. Even worse in EnZed, with essentially no armed forces, no air force at all, and only the countryside had guns. Vermin rifles mostly, some pig guns. To survive you had to go bush."

"Oh boy. Well then, sir, how did the Aussies preserve their army and fleet in being?"

"The interior red desert sheltered the ground and tac air forces in old mines re-purposed as bunkers, especially around Coober Pedy. So the first reaper landings there failed big time – they got nuked in the desert, after Adelaide."

"Missiles?"– asked Shepard. " _We_ had trouble getting guidance to work."

"The Russians showed the way. Pop-up nuclear mines. Hang a fake armored formation out as bait…"

"… and wait for the Reapers walk towards them. I see."

"We'll make a general of you yet, Shepard."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #68, "Arm'd with more than complete steel"_

* * *

Tuesday, August 4, 2015


	2. Arm'd with more than complete steel

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 68 **Arm'd with more than complete steel**

* * *

 _Shop for Effect_

Oriana's next plan on Kelly's and EDI's return to the Citadel was a shopping expedition to the Presidium retail outlet of After Dark fashions. There one could buy the latest outré fashions, for a staggering price.

She took care, following Miranda's advice, to go in just before closing time at 5pm, and spoke a code to the manager – who very quickly established that the present client was (a) the personal representative of the new owner, and (b) a celebrity, and (c) _exceedingly_ , ingly, rich. The shop closed, and they began shopping, with the manager and two staff tailing behind.

Kelly had occasionally window-shopped on the Citadel, especially after the Cerberus coup, and _most_ especially when Shepard had unceremoniously dragged her to the Presidium Commons for a change of clothes. ( _"It's change your look or die, Chambers. Please don't put me to the bother of tracking down and killing whoever looks at you cross-eyed."_ )

Of course, the likes of this high-fashion boutique was way beyond what her old Cerberus salary would stretch to, let alone the meager _peculium_ of a refugee. Oriana's purse was a different matter. But Oriana's taste in clothes… wasn't there.

Not for lack of talent though. It was a matter of education: "No, Ori. This red thing, yes, I saw Miranda wear the identical outfit and she made it look good, it has possibilities…"

"Wait, Miranda had this?"

"Minor accessorization differences. Obviously a fairly popular production run."

"Then I'm not getting one."

Kelly sighed. This would be a long shop till she dropped. Hannah at least would know what to do with Felicia.

"Ah… Miss Lawson? The first time Ms Miranda Lawson wore her red dress, it was a unique one-off by our designer."

"You made more?"

"We had five orders _that night_. He has often expressed interest in doing another. May I suggest…"

* * *

 _Walk tall. Walk straight_ _…_

"You're rich. But you're young and unsophisticated. At least, that's what people will think, looking at your bare dossier."

"Isn't that bad?"

"No. Benjamin Franklin making first appearance at the Versailles court is the classic example. He didn't wear a wig, came in his own hair, and was celebrated as a child of nature."

"Except he was a devious wizard and presiding genius of print."

" _Exactly!_ Dress like a princess, but a provincial one, no decadence. Reinforce what people want to believe… you'll have them on the hip during negotiations."

"Fine. But how does that translate to clothes?"

"It's not just clothes. It's the way you walk. Don't walk scared, and don't walk like an asari maiden, trying to attract attention. It's impossible to disguise from a man the way a woman walks, they're hard-wired to pick that up. Never exaggerate it, don't do the teenage stoop, don't do that girly-girl act of yours. Just be yourself."

There was an audience. Kelly's main concern right then was that John not get bored or confused with Felicia's feeding and nappy schedule. But, whether she cared or not, Kelly was already on the manager's look-out-for-this-one VIP enabler list.

 _Banners_

"It's not done to wear loose clothes anymore. They don't show the feminine shape."

"When was the last time you saw a misshapen woman's form on the Presidium? Phenotype gene therapy removes the outliers. Let the men _guess_ what you look like."

Kelly picked out a duck-egg blue silk blouse and flowing skirt, not diaphanous but quite sheer, combined with blue hose picked out with tiny red appliqué ladybirds. For Oriana (going through a goth princess phase) she picked out something similar, but in black with red flecks and grey highlights.

"Now walk down the corridor."

 _Aha_ , thought the manager. The boss shows good balance, but her gangling teen side comes through every time she turns her head to see people's reaction.

"Not quite. Watch me."

Kelly began to walk, moving her limbs not in the proud stomp of a catwalk model, nor the feline grace of a professional vid star, but a relaxed swing which helped the flow of the loose arachnid-silk garments both hide and suggest her real shape. The airflow caused loose hems to ride up, a nimbus around motion.

"How do you _do_ that?"

"Watch where you're going. Keep your antennae out for movement to either side, but focus on your destination."

"Antennae?"

"Sorry. Dad said I had psychic feelers. I don't believe that, it's just… something I can do. Trained awareness. A kind of paying attention. Mum could do it too."

"And the walk?"

"She coached me with that, too. Some of it comes of wearing high heels a long time. I wanted to be a vid star when I was little. Until I met one visiting high school and she was so high on… cocaine, I think… she was vapid. Spoke very fast, no sense."

"Oh. Can I learn this?"

"Sure. You've had a good start, Miranda's given you her, um, weaponized version. But you have to concentrate on balance. Do enough ballet, and it becomes second nature. Mum started me when I was six, though."

"I was started on ballet from _five_. But I stopped in high school, it wasn't cool."

"Well… if I survive the night, let's get you up to speed again. It'll hurt, but it'll be good for my flexibility too. Which reminds me… Sir, can you show me your range of skinsuits?"

"We have Miranda Lawson's fitting here, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am. You may call me Miss Felicia Hannigan. I'd like a black variant of Miranda's for Oriana. As well as a black and white one just like Miranda's, again should be the same size as Miss Lawson here."

"Yes, miss. Those will take twenty minutes to fabricate."

Kelly flicked a glance at Oriana. Ori looked thoughtful: "They might start without us. But it's traditional for a beautiful woman to keep her husband waiting."

"He's not my husband!"

"We'll have to do something about that."

"Not happening. Sooner or later, I'll be in the gutter if I'm still alive. Might as well go out in silk…"

As they left the outlet, the manager called Kelly back while his staff loaded the packages in the back of the skycar. She was still wearing the "silk."

"Miss Hannigan, I couldn't help overhearing some of your remarks. Are you in trouble with your… employer?"

"Er – in a manner of speaking. Possibly. One can see it coming."

"If you need a position, Miss Hannigan, I would pay a considerable fee for you to teach three or four of my models what you just crammed into the head of Miss Lawson in forty minutes. And a retainer for the ongoing evaluation of our in-house designs."

* * *

 _A_ _merry life_ _._

Shepard did a double-take, getting the door. He hadn't been expecting this.

"Good god. You both look like a million credits."

Oriana gave him a kiss on the cheek which exposed him to a stunning perfume, giving rise to all sorts of reprehensible impulses, then took herself off to her downstairs bedroom. Judging by the devastating over-the-shoulder grin, she knew exactly the impact she was having. Where the blazes did she learn _that?_

Kelly flicked Shepard another megawatt grin on her way upstairs.

Okay, question answered. Oriana was walking a little differently now, with a _soupçon_ of Miranda's prowl, but _Kelly_ had moved with the flowing grace of a princess on ice skates to the foot of the stairs. How had he not noticed before?

He stood there, door and jaw agape, till his mother jabbed him with her elbow.

"Well, go on, go ask her how the shopping went!"

"Mom. It's fairly clear how the shopping went."

"True. I think they're doing that on purpose, by the way."

"Women can _do_ that? Switching on the sex appeal?"

"A very few. One day I'm sure someone will find the gene locus and…"

"I suspect it's nurture as much as nature, mom." He wasn't sure of that; his perceptions were still a bit foggy.

"Then there's hope for us all. But Kelly manifested that straight out of school."

"What's all this about, anyway?"

"It could be just high spirits. But the timing is too fortuitous, with Miranda going. I think perhaps reactions to stress."

"Yeah. Shopping therapy, don't they call it?"

Wait, he'd missed something. _Probably the effect of the perfume_. He shook his head to clear it, and proceeded upstairs.

 _Wasp w_ _a_ _i_ _sted_

Shepard caught up with Kelly in the upstairs bedroom. _Hm._ She had placed the teak box for her pistol on top of the weapon bench; her skinsuit gift was hanging on the armor locker.

"That, Kelly, was… kind of impressive."

Kelly was all business now. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"This." Shepard gathered her in his arms and enveloped her, a complete embrace, inducing a brief squeak but no appreciable resistance, in fact her eyes closed and she melted into it. Half a minute or so later, those green eyes were crinkling up at him.

"Was I any good?"

"Hur hur. Did I ever have any chance at all?"

"Um. Haven't done that since prom night. Most of the time I kept myself under control. But, there _was_ your cabin. Help me with this will you…"

She stepped back a little and began changing out of her silks. "… thanks. Maybe I cheated a little to get your attention on the _Normandy_. Just a tiny bit."

"I do remember. Early on I was beginning to wonder about Cerberus motivations, especially after EDI's revelations and her inability to answer meaningful questions…"

"The bugging…"

"That too. So I cross-examined most of the crew trying to get a better handle on the real nature of the organization…"

"And eventually you got to me. Sorry, Shepard, I was a little afraid–"

"The word you used was 'terrified'."

"I really, really, wanted not to make a bish."

"You didn't."

"That wasn't all, though. By then… Shepard, when you're focused on your mission and organizing everything around you, _you_ have a… a kind of reality distortion field."

"Kasumi said I had an aura–"

"Good word. It'll do. When you're like that, you'd see straight through me. I hear Brooks, Lilium, whatever, couldn't even make a dent."

"Kasumi related that to the things I'd seen, not some intrinsic quality. No-one real acts like Brooks when the bullets are flying. What I saw that day in _you_ … was a kind of glow."

"Oops. Sorry. But that was just a little blip."

"And then there was dinner in the cabin. We were up all night and I kept seeing these gorgeous glimpses of a girl I wanted to do terrible, wonderful things to, then another girl, beautiful, calm, thoughtful, and an _expert_ people person."

"Those ' _glimpses'_ were a mistake. I knew you had to stay on-mission. But by then, I was desperate – didn't know whether I was coming or going."

She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. By this time Kelly was down to her bra and blue leggings, making it difficult to concentrate.

"Desperate? Why? We didn't fully understand what we faced then."

"Not desperate about the Reapers or Collectors, John. Desperate about you, to impress _you_. Without… shortcuts. You think _I_ shone? You had an aura too, as Kasumi put it. Some men do, you know."

"If so, it happens without me even thinking about it."

Kelly approached, put her arms around his neck, and looked up with an acute ecstatic agony in her eyes, whispering: " _Desperation_ , John. You wanted to do terrible, wonderful things to me. _Does it not occur to you that I might have wanted those things done?_ "

"And eventually we surrendered to that. God forgive me, I'd do it again."

They kissed, and simply stood there a few seconds. Then: "Me too– the chaos, the terror and a little bit of pain notwithstanding." A quick smile, then Kelly sighed:

" _But_ that wasn't the plan, you were spoken for, and there was a betrayal of trust." Through the roaring in his ears Shepard heard a voice of reason, tried to answer lightly:

"No man is spoken for till he says so. And I still want to do those things, dammit." That got a _'blip'_. "Miranda's of the opinion it's a little soon. From what I read…"

"She could be right. My body doesn't care. It's still knitting together, yes…" She released him, removed her blue hose – "… but a little faster than yours." She walked to the armor wardrobe, picked up her skinsuit. "Will it fit this, now?"

"It should. You're the same lithe spirit I remember– vividly, in the semi-dark."

"Flatterer. Anyway, what do you mean, you're not spoken for? I wasn't just talking about other things you had going. Miranda, say. There was _Normandy_ , and the rest."

She began the skinsuit with the legs; it might as well have been a reverse strip-tease, dammit. Then air-seal boots, slimmer and lower than Miranda's, without the greaves, more for speed.

"Ash has _Normandy_ now. As to Miranda… well. Crazy. Absolutely the wrong thing to do with another officer. I told myself she was a 'political,' and a civilian, but she was still a squadmate. Besides, after the Alpha relay thing, we had to call it off. We knew the ex-Cerberus crew would have to scatter; that kind of attachment was a danger to us both."

Kelly paused: "I see. Help do me up please. Where does the sling go?"

"Like this… You know, I'm going to be fantasizing about unpeeling you tonight."

"Sufficient unto the night is the good thereof ( _Grin_ )." Shepard groaned, subvocally.

"Look, by the time I went looking for you after the Cerberus coup, Miranda in particular had vanished. I couldn't be sure those I loved existed any more, even Mom."

"I wondered. It was hard to be sure. But I could tell you needed care and attention, and god knows I wanted to give it."

"Kelly girl, I'd already fallen for you so hard they'll hear the crash in the next galaxy, as inevitably and inexorably as physics."

"All the same, my remit did not include seducing you. Although in retrospect I think the Illusive Man might have, um…"

"Been expecting chemistry?"

"What happened between _us_ was biology."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #69, "An angel passes"_

* * *

Tuesday, August 4, 2015


	3. An angel passes

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 69 **An angel passes**

* * *

 _Wasted in the desert_

Everyone gathered over dinner. Afterwards, the conversation turned to the latest frigate exploits while Vega organized post-prandial drinks and Jana checked Shepard's physical condition.

Oriana had heard about Noveria: "We used nukes after Adelaide? I thought nukes aren't usable these days?"

"In free space, they barely work. Ground is different." EDI looked at Liara, who had made this comprehensible to Garrus. "Tell her. The alternative is me or Donnelly."

"Spare us _that_. Ground shockwaves are reaper-lethal, Oriana. That's why the first thing Reapers did was melt metal over the identifiable ICBM silos. Reapers didn't get the submarines, but those were told to strike from hiding, and hide again."

"Exactly," said Hannah; "to act as a fleet in being. Except that in Australia, they didn't have nuclear submarines. They only had tactical nukes on missiles of their own design. On the other hand, that meant the nukes weren't silo'd in permanent bunkers. They didn't have to be used barring once on a husk army approaching Canberra – the mere threat was enough to delay the Reaper troops after that. It took Adelaide to provoke general tactical use, and then only as remote-detonated mines."

"Yah," agreed Hackett. "Then desert sand or clay popcorned, destroyers got walloped by the resulting precursor waves, and capital Reapers, being so long, were extra-vulnerable to EMP, massively bigger because of the Earth's magnetic field."

"Is that why the Reapers tended to use kinetic strikes in the Pacific?"

"You mean, like Hawaii and Sumatra. No, that had more to do with the difficulty of landing slaughter-ships, one strike could tsunami an entire atoll chain, and there was nowhere to run. Not counting big islands like Sumatra or New Zealand."

" _Those_ places had no fission cores, so slaughterships were safe in the first few months, but even there towards the end cores were smuggled by submarine…"

"The main centers were either whacked or husked? Like Brazil?"

"Sort of. But unlike Brazil the countryside was nearly empty, Australasia had highly urbanized nation-states and it only took one hit per city to wipe out nearly everything. Except for the ragged remains of the regular armed forces, there's no _there_ there."

"Dang," muttered Oriana. "What about NAS, Kelly? I hear bad things from Allers."

"Ori… We saw how bad it was yesterday. I don't have figures but…"

Kelly had been feeding Felicia, who had progressed to a bottle. She wiped the teat then put it away, sad and silent. Hannah took it up instead. "It's… depressing. If you visit, NAS is staggering to its feet, but winter brought numerous deaths, post-Reapers."

"And no few suicides after them," mumbled Kelly. Oriana winced.

"All the same, that problem pales in comparison with the overcrowded Asian countryside, in the early months of broken networks and stretched resources."

"Not the slums? EDI, can you bring up a Blue Marble view for us? On the fireplace monitor?" EDI nodded, as a view from a geosynchronous satellite sprang up.

"Here. Lots of cloud still, but less than last year and they're white. Slums died."

"Right. Overlay the megalopolises please… ta. Now the terrain nonconformities…"

"Look at the craters, Ms Lawson. The little cities were husked and the big ones obliterated by asteroids because India did have nukes and used them. Since the Red Flash, governments changed in Delhi every six weeks, the crops failed in Bengal – twice – and the consequent civil wars raging across the subcontinent dropped to the level of knives and arrows. Parts of the Deccan glow in the dark."

"Steven, I know she has to discuss world news, but does Oriana need such deep background, you little ray of sunshine?"

Hackett grimaced. "They can't even make gunpowder, north of the Rann of Kutch."

"No," Liara agreed, inclining her head. "UNAS and Europe were emptier and the survivors had correspondingly more to go around."

* * *

 _Mammal vs dinosaur_

In the belly of a steel beast, Brooks was not concerned about the fate of an Earth she hardly knew. Her own world was threatened. Bounded by prison partitions she might be, but alive. So far.

Mikhailovich's medal threatened that. _H_ _e insisted_ was unlikely to be an excuse.

From time to time prisoners did mysteriously vanish. Some said that meant release. Latrine duty capos observed that sometimes in days following, the Yahg's effluent was unusually fragrant. Brooks suspected that at some point Shepard or Mikhailovich would demand an accounting, but that would be too late for her. _Have_ _to work this out._ In her toilet she hunched over and looked closely at the trinket in the palm of her hand. No obvious tech, though the central crystal might be a lens.

But if there was a mystery, it must be one the admiral felt she could solve.

So at night, under the blanket where spy-eyes couldn't see – she hoped – she felt the contours of the ribbon and star. There appeared to be a slight flex of the star when she squeezed the bronze-gilt back with her thumb. She held her thumb down. After several seconds it vibrated once and a faint green flash was visible in the dark crystal.

 _Oh boy._

After a moment, she held her thumb down again. It vibrated twice, and flashed red.

 _Oh boy, oh boy._

That night, she slept.

* * *

 _Trilemmas_

"Yet the Blue Marble looks almost back to normal." Kelly was transfixed by the planet view. To blasé spacers, this was routine. Not to her. "Lordy, I hope that means people live through winter next."

Liara followed up that thought:

"Those broad streaks of dust are finally gone." (The door bing-bonged. Oriana left to welcome the new guest.) "I suppose one _good_ thing about that winter," Liara reflected, "would be that it tended to eliminate the indoctrinated." Being quarter-Krogan, Liara would happily contemplate eliminating negatives.

"That is a point of view. The _bad_ thing about it, of course, was … that it tended to kill off the indoctrinated." Hackett sounded disapproving.

Liara blinked. "Wait. Didn't that just go on the positive side of the ledger?"

"My dear Liara, it's true they're desperately dangerous, but however confused, treasonous, and grumpy the indoctrinated were, they were still family to someone. Who then looked for someone else to blame. Often, us. The Alliance and Council."

Hannah was a bit more inclined to accentuate the positive:

"Fortunately, chaos hasn't spread everywhere. For the UNAS it was pretty much confined to territories west of the continental divide. It wouldn't be so bad except the land registration systems depended on deeds and promissory notes which were lost, not that the system functioned well even when they could be consulted."

"There was no central authoritative registry which could be backed up?"

"Not bloody likely, except where Torrens systems were adopted. Elsewhere, individual states didn't guarantee title. Ditching deeds would have been a threat to the existence of title insurance companies. They just tried to keep track of changes. Lobbyists argued that Torrens-style central registers were more subject to fraud, though oddly enough the reverse was true. Money bought votes; old deed-based systems stayed."

"Wait," said Kelly: "In Canada it was a different story."

"Of course, and in some Mexican and old US states also," agreed Hackett. "But mostly the deeds and recording offices were gone, so even places the Reapers passed over, neighbor fought neighbor over title to land."

"Right, I hear that drove survivalists and ranchers in Oregon and Washington to distraction – and then at each other's throats."

"Nothing up to date exists, Ori." confirmed Hannah. "The coastal cities and Chicago are basically gone and along with them, the title recorders. Also the banking records."

Kelly was shocked: "The records are really gone?"

"Incomplete, at best. Such records as _are_ left are inconsistent with each other, too many local updates not being reconciled."

"Hence businessmen committing suicide in all sorts of novel ways." Oriana had covered this for Westerlund. "The ones who didn't diversify off-planet. The funny thing is the productive people who operated the machinery now own it, so they don't have rent-seeking creditors telling them what they can and can't do."

"I bet that'll give the Primarch's five year plan conniptions," predicted Kelly.

"Not so much, it's made the local economies a lot more flexible," remarked Hackett. "Except for DC, which was a Reaper 'administrative center' – so crucial Federal records survived."

"Unfortunately, that also meant the indoctrination of Congress and the Supremes."

"Hannah's a pessimist. It's not all gloom. Huerta's negotiating a return to the Union with Deseret. In Russia the St Petersburg régime still rules with a stainless steel fist."

"All the same, John says it was quite bad enough. Italy, other parts of Europe. Albania…"

"Italy was a special case, Kelly. The Pope went into a Reaper for negotiations."

"But an infectious one, no? Though I never really understood what happened there. Even the newspeople seem confused. The ones who aren't, scream at each other."

"Ah." Oriana knew about this. "Well, the President of the Republic, with the Prime Minister and her cabinet, also entered the Rome Reaper for 'negotiations'. They came out with a so-called "cease fire agreement". This even encouraged the top leadership of neighboring countries to do likewise. Anyway, when Reapers broke the cease-fire, that indoctrinated 'administration' called it 'hot pursuit' of resistance."

"Allers tells me the various militaries actually had orders to help put the 'rebels' down. She actually predicted it, broadcasting from the _Normandy_."

"Yup, and in Italy from the President no less," confirmed Hannah. Hackett nodded:

"At that point, the Vatican hierarchy condemned the resistance as terrorists, excommunicated the Resistance leaders, called for abjuration of violence, rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar's, then threw its full support behind "peace negotiations–"

"Turkeys calling for an early Christmas," sighed Oriana.

"In a rather literal sense, yes. Of course the resistance produced an antipope who declared the entire Vatican to be indoctrinated and that true doctrine required an anti-Reaper crusade…"

Kelly had first heard about this from Gabby. "…That sounded fairly apocalyptic."

"… whereupon the original Pope removed him from the apostolic succession, saying the antipope had been predicted by scripture – the Book of Revelations. Both the antipope and his 'resistance' were excommunicated by bell, book, and candle. They of course returned the favor, with the result that good catholics were now at each other's throats."

"It gets worse," declared Hannah.

"Of course it does," said Liara a little bitterly. "But go on."

"As part of all this, the original pope declared _ex cathedra_ – as a matter of doctrine – that the propositions of the antipope were not merely false but heretical."

Oriana took this up. "Also, whosoever followed him was likewise heretical. Quoting scripture, a Reaper pope could make a pretty good case in the eyes of the faithful!"

"You and Allers have compared notes," guessed Hannah.

"Well duh. The French were less confused, because they had been involved with antipopes centuries earlier. Lutherans and other Protestants didn't care because they didn't believe in Papal infallibility, or for that matter any dogma outside scripture. Besides, the Reapers could quote scripture to their purpose, too!"

"Yah, and they did." Hackett continued: "The Episcopalian churches in particular benefited. They weren't impressed by Reaper stooges quoting scripture. In fact their founding articles of faith insist that church councils have erred, and will err! They called themselves catholic, and recognized the pope - as just another bishop, specifically of Rome. But they didn't recognize his supreme apostolic authority, let alone papal infallibility. So outside Europe, especially in Africa and UNAS, they picked up a lot of converts from disenchanted Roman Catholics."

Oriana nodded; " _Within_ Europe, there was too much history for that to happen. The occupied countries descended into civil war. In Eire, it was baroque, Ulstermen fought alongside the catholic resistance and both sides split about eight ways."

"And after the downfall of the Reapers, it got worse _again_ ," repeated Hannah.

At this point John Shepard, returning from Jana's ministrations, groaned on hearing the subject of conversation. But he accepted tequila from Vega, watched by Hannah, eyes twinkling, evilly grinning.

"Mom, I swear if there were no war you'd start one for the fun of it."

"Wars will cease with human stupidity and cupidity. Meanwhile, I don't have to start one. There's an elegant sufficiency of them."

"How could the Reapers' defeat make matters _worse?_ " – demanded Kelly.

"Stand in the Pope's shoes."

"Which one?"

"The original one. The antipope, too, but the problem is more acute for the original Roman church. Papal infallibility is an article of faith, a part of the infallibility of the church as a whole."

"Ya me lo dices," growled Vega, then muttered low: " _Pues sí, hay que creer todo lo que cree y enseña a creer la Santa Madre Iglesia Católica, Apostólica, Romana. ¡Y basta!_ "

"Come on, James, you can see it, surely?"

"I don't have to like it, Admiral."

Kelly examined Vega's mood and decided he was more embarrassed than threatened. "So what is it we should see?"

Vega sighed; his shoulders slumped, which was quite a sight. "Look kid, the Pope essentially said that the Reapers were on the side of the angels. And he proclaimed the justice of their cause, and their inevitable victory, as a matter of doctrine."

"Oh. Oh _my!_ "

Hannah nodded. "Vega has it in a nutshell. What are the indoctrinated to think? From their Pope's point of view, the divine battle has been waged and lost. And in fact, the Pope's in the custody of the antipope. He might not be put to death. The initial thirst for vengeance is giving way to an uneasy exhortation to forgiveness. But he might not forgive himself. He's on suicide watch pending trial."

Thunderstruck, Kelly remembered from a far past some of her catechism, and a very old scandalous book: " _La révolte des anges_ ", she murmured.

"Hell yeah. _"Childhood's End"_ too, and _"The Day after Judgment"_ , but you got it, kid; I read France's thing in high school. Like, if it's true the Reapers were sent by God, then he and his creatures were defeated – in fact, if that's true then Daniel's ancient of days just lost the war foretold."

Hannah nodded agreement: "Of course if it's _not_ true, then the Reapers were not God's instrument, neither the Pope nor his church is infallible, nor ever was, and the Holy Father personally could be the antichrist of Revelation."

"Yah. And if _neither_ is true, his entire life is empty, and so is the antipope's. So now every low-life in or out of the Church is laughing at them both. My mom isn't alive to see it now, thank God. Or maybe not."

Kelly stared at Vega, her mouth an _O_ , seeing Vega's internal frustrations and conflicts laid bare, not daring to say anything that might inflame the huge soldier's mood further.

Hannah Shepard had no such scruples: "Precisely, lieutenant. And just to confuse morally upright citizens more, in Italy the various mafias – to a man – joined the resistance. No surprise, they started out as resistance movements against whoever, be they Genoese, French, Spanish."

Hackett had remained quiet for more of this but now inserted what he felt was the important point: "The Mediterranean coast went feral." Hannah then put that in broader perspective:

"Not Arab coastal states, they were already too fragmented for Reaper divide and rule, and the Sunni muslims didn't really have the same notion of priesthood. But Shia have something like it, and they suffered for it even worse than Italy when a hidden imam re-appeared."

"He was accepted as the awaited mahdi?"

"He could prove it. His genotype was even consistent with descendants of Jafar ibn Ali's family, and his mDNA was consistent with matrilinear descendants of Ali al-Hadi."

"Hah! A chimeric clone!"

"Whatever. In any event, the western European, mediterranean and gulf coastal areas are only now coming back under control of such national governments as survived."

Kelly thought about this. "I heard Allers reporting the Legion invading Marseilles had slain every indoctrinated survivor above the age of seven."

"That's accurate enough." Hackett confirmed. "I demanded an explanation from the Legion commandant, who's been appointed prefect so is also the local military governor. He pointed out the entire _midi_ is now an armed camp, blocking refugees from the Po valley – the only part of Italy with working farms, therefore a target of reivers."

"That doesn't explain the massacre of the kids."

"Bitter experience taught the commandant that if the family fails to surrender _en bloc_ , as he put it, the whole household must be whacked."

"Goddess. That's a bit severe," said Liara.

"He didn't sound proud of it. Called it a winter quarantine measure. Seven-year olds pulled grenade pins when rescued. He's barely French, himself – Alsacien from Strasbourg – but he and his legionnaires follow the orders of the current President."

"What about the Italian refugees all through Savoy?"

"He demands they fix their own problems, not import them to France."

"They can't, without help. The Vatican has been completely indoctrinated, Rome outside is empty, Milan and Firenze have declared republics. Naples suffered the ministrations of slaughterships, like Rio."

"Gives a new meaning to _'See Naples and die'_ I guess," grumbled Vega.

"And Reggio di Calabria was husked. There's no central authority at all."

"Where else can they find shelter?"

"We haven't the troops to force the issue."

"That's true, but look on the bright side," insisted Hannah. "The UK and the north are tottering to their feet, despite the cold. Dracones from Charleston are arriving. Factories there are back up, albeit with very low manning levels."

"Which means a lot of safety rules were ditched with the red tape."

"That just means they have to balance five thousand industrial accidents a year against national starvation and hypothermia."

"Boring." Jana said as she walked in. "This is the kind of thing that fixes itself. Politics, ultimately. Chloe and Miranda aren't big on that. Me neither."

Kelly felt this was a little insensitive:

"Neither am I, but I'd feel guilty if I didn't take it seriously. There's how many of us in space, with a decent standard of living? And how many down on Earth?"

And this actually appeared to give Jana pause:

"About five billion now, versus about five million left on the Citadel after the deaths and emigration to Earth. A few on Arcturus. Say another ten billion in various colonies and space installations around the galaxy, but we don't have contact with them. Locally, one in a thousand with a pre-Reaper standard of living. Okay, point taken."

"Thank you. All the same, I'm heading up to change Felicia." Kelly got up, Shepard too, but he then hesitated: _Something's cooking._

Should he stick around a moment longer?

 _No. We'll meet it, greet it, and beat it if need be._ "Duty calls, huh? I'm going with you…"

– so the moment passed. Vega, Hackett and Hannah went to watch sport video. Now Jana could get down to business. Liara expressed the relief of all the plotters:

"Goddess, I thought they'd never leave. Can we get started now?"

* * *

 _Next chapter: #70, "Meeting a man from the motor trade"_

* * *

Thursday, August 6, 2015


	4. Meeting a man from the motor trade

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 70 **Meeting a man from the motor trade**

* * *

 _One may keep a secret_

Jana felt if not satisfied, then content; they had the major actors in the drama, EDI and Kelly; and two witnesses –

– Shepard, helping Felicia settle in, and her mother, the _sine qua non_ of the events;

– Liara, the other witness, picking out a soft tune on the piano.

Then there were two authority figures, as yet ignorant of any problems, watching a documentary on the origins of the war, giggling about dreadnought stock footage thirty years out of date. Best leave them out of it.

"Liara, have you Glyph with you? I think we can convene this now."

"Surely." Glyph appeared at the autosocket of the "piano."

"EDI? Would you sit with us. Glyph? The piano's fine, but can we have something that will cover our discussion? I'd rather explore what we know without disturbing Felicia or her family… just yet."

" _Outside the auditory dampeners? A constant flow of sufficient volume? You need something orchestral."_ Holst's "Planets" suite began with _Mercury_. The 'piano' was a music library _cum_ synthesizer including classical public domain works. Jana's tiny forensic tripod settled to the task of piecing together the doings and works of their spy.

Jana opened the discussion: "When EDI woke from her ground state, we discovered anomalies in her understanding of events on the Normandy SR2."

This was immediately challenged by EDI: "I would not regard them as anomalies. I have the unmodified video stream to substantiate the status of Kelly Chambers as a spy."

Liara choked on her chocolate, but recovered quickly. "Not this again. Perhaps you could just cover the highlights quickly. We know after all that Garrus has already been through all this."

"Of course. He saw the material I played for him."

 _Now_ Liara went a paler shade of blue and looked sidelong at Jana, who sat pat with her hands clasped together. "I _see_. Jana, you have issued the appropriate caution?"

"Yes. There is also Miranda, who seems to have abruptly dropped her concerns."

"Miranda will work with anyone to accomplish her objectives," noted EDI; true enough, although it was noteworthy to Liara that she had done so _after_ a private session with the Admirals; not something to emphasize just yet.

"Very well. Jana, I presume you've been over the business about that being Ms Chambers' job at the time?"

"Oh yes."

"And that neither John nor Hannah seem to be bothered by the events?"

"Indeed. The thrust of EDI's continued concern is manifold. _First_ , our Ms Chambers was a continual Cerberus security risk right up till the end of Cerberus at the battle of Cronos Station; _second,_ that John's insouciance in this regard is attributable to what amounts to a kind of indoctrinated behavior due to sexual attraction, otherwise difficult to account for; _third,_ that despite Cerberus' demise she still represents a baleful influence on the man who, when all is said and done, we depend on as the only military mind proven able to organize Reaper extermination; because above all, _fourth,_ she _represents an unknown quantity and an unknown threat_."

A brief silence ensued. Jana added: "Of course, AI's have great difficulty with that _unknown quantity_ bit. Kelly somehow avoided making any list of Shep's associates."

"EDI's not going to let go of this, then, is she."

EDI raised a finger for attention: "May I speak?"

"Do!"

"I have a dilemma. A multiple bind. John now has a daughter. Not only does Kelly have a sexual hold, Felicia also continues his evolutionary line. Acting to eliminate her influence would make John very unhappy, as I understand it. Hannah also."

"Yes! So don't!"

"Would action not clear a path to safety for the race of reason?"

Jana cleared her throat, getting Liara's attention: "EDI already _has_ acted, by bringing some of Chambers' activities to the attention of Garrus, Miranda, _and a number of other people_ albeit mostly deceased, like Thane. Also Mordin, when on a bug hunt."

"Oh… bother. _Goddess_. Have you told EDI her actions probably resulted in Chambers being left alone without squad support?"

"Jana impressed on me the likelihood of Shepard rendering me nonfunctional."

"I'll bet. At a guess, Thane wasn't impressed either."

"No. I thought that was odd at the time. Jana, I have left the required thermic lance at the doorway, should John think it necessary."

"That's a joke, right?"

"No. It is an inefficient way of rendering me nonfunctional, but would suffice."

Jana stared at EDI for a second, got up, and went to inspect the tarp-covered wheeled trolley she had taken for a barbecue.

* * *

 _Two, if one is dead_

Cradled on their bed with Felicia in her cot to one side, Kelly and John both felt themselves drowsing off. _Mercury_ came to an end and _Venus_ began – a very quiet piece to begin with. Kelly's eyes snapped open; she could hear someone pulling the plastic off the barbecue. Her skinsuit's auditory enhancement was active, and she didn't know how to turn it off using biofeedback yet, that would take some time.

 _Surely no-one would try to light up in here?_ But no: the plastic was replaced. Kelly rose carefully, still disturbing John who grumbled so he got a peck on the cheek before she began to attend to Felicia – wanting not a bottle, yet, but nappy change. Weapons bench was good for that. This done, she tested an impromptu _pas de chat._ It felt good, her new skinsuit restored some of the elasticity she had not yet recovered; and it was picking up voices below. She began to play with the omnitool interface.

* * *

 _Technological Revolution Solutions_

"One only Kassa Fabrication "White Heat" oxygen lance. EDI took me literally."

"By the Goddess. Proverbs for you, EDI. Stupid is as stupid does–"

"That was _stupid_?"

"It was, but leave that aside. Evil is as evil does. Good is as good does. How can we characterize Chambers? Let's see what a Cerberus AI can get right. Jana, you first."

"Good, no question. In Cerberus, I thought she'd die young. But she–"

"Had overwatch. EDI? Recall she was doing her job. And Shepard knew most of it."

EDI looked confused. "Neither. Work is a neutral activity. But spying? She… I suppose she also worked very hard for the refugees. She must have cared about them."

"Indeed. So Thane would have judged. He also noticed Kelly's effect on John, which was overall very positive. How about Miranda? Good, Evil, or Stupid?"

"Miranda would be whatever Shepard wanted her to be."

"So, maybe all of the above. Evil? Good? – lots of potential either way. Jana?"

"Intrinsically? None of the above. Developmentally? A whiff of brimstone from Dad, but frankincense too – from Oriana? She's human, what else could we expect? Much of Shepard did rub off on her. Stupid? Never. Mostly, Miranda was _final_."

"That she is. EDI, if this were Miranda, I would be worried that the lance over there might see some use. But Shepard is not in the habit of rendering squad-mates non-functional, although he had to leave one behind and he was sorely tempted with Ashley at one point. You are safe. For now. Arrange for the lance to go in engineering stores. Try _Normandy_ , Adams would have a use for it."

"Thank you. I will."

* * *

 _Curious notion_ _s_

By this time Chambers had mastered the basics of her suit's omnitool interface. The voices were discussing Miranda and the curious package by the door, in nonsensical terms. Behind her, she heard Shepard getting up.

Still exploring, she tried a few more of the flying graceful routines of classical ballet – less a canary in a cage, more a swallow dipping through the twilight. Close behind, she heard a soft clapping and: "Girl, that's a very different sort of dance."

Returning to first arm position, feet in fourth croisé (a sort of balletic equivalent of parade rest) she smiled: "As good as the last one in the cabin?"

"Wish I had the flexibility for either."

"It helps to train since childhood. What were _you_ doing when you were six?"

"Learning how to field-strip Dad's pistol. I was too small to actually fire it."

In one flowing sequence, Kelly turned _en pointe_ to run through the first three arabesques, extending a leg for balance; she leaned over, and fluttering her arms kissed Shepard's cheek. He blinked, drew her to him, kissed her right back. They grinned at each other.

"You're at least fit. And thinner. Flexibility training? Might help your recovery."

"When _I_ dance, it's cause for laughter."

" _Tsk_." She placed hands on his shoulders: "We'll see about that. You taught me _one_ way to shoot one particular gun. To keep me alive. Care to learn _one_ dance? An old thing called the tango. Maybe we could start yoga as well. To keep you alive."

"When I'm less likely to break, maybe. But, tango? Why that one?"

"It takes two to tango, _mon capitaine_ … and it's a start. You'll learn how to watch how the flow of movement reflects your partner's thought and intent."

"Would that help with combat?"

"I'm not sure, John. It helps with life."

Five minutes later, Shepard gave Chambers one last brief hug, and proceeded down to the kitchen for an anti-inflammatory, plus something warm containing caffeine.

His dancer fixed her vision on a window corner and indulged in a series of pirouettes, drifting to the mezzanine balustrade, where there was a better audio signal.

On the 'piano', Glyph began _M_ _ars_ – the next "Planet" out.

* * *

 _As others see us_

Time to put this to bed, thought Liara, five minutes later.

"… I cannot answer for what Hannah might do if newsies get hold of any such speculation and warp it in their usual breathless manner."

"Oh. I see."

"I don't think you do, yet. Do you know who else Kelly was spying for? _I_ do."

"No. But you are the Shadow Broker. I am not surprised you would know."

"EDI, from the time you imposed a communications blackout on _Normandy_ , Kelly passed information to the Shadow Broker whenever she had leave on the Citadel."

"To you? That would have put her on The Illusive Man's death list, all right. No, wait… that happened early." Another silence pregnant with vile swirling speculation.

"You mean, the _Yahg_?"

* * *

 _Mouse or_ _L_ _ouse_

Sitting in the recliner on the mezzanine, Kelly could not actually see those speaking, but did not really need to. She leaned forward and put her face in her hands, wondering how despite having known this must come, it still _hurt_ so.

 _Consequences_

"She passed psych surveillance to the _old_ Shadow Broker!?"

"Some raw innocuous conversations. Not the psych reports that resulted."

"Nonetheless, that had value for the Broker's operations!" EDI sounded shocked.

"Future operations, but only the Alliance could make use of the material straight away. The deal was, that the Shadow Broker would pass it on, to Caleb Antella."

Even _Jana_ was shocked. "An agent for the Yahg!? You permitted this to continue?"

"Kelly became _my_ information resource. Earlier, the Yahg's motive was Mr Antella would be vulnerable to Broker blackmail. He received material from Antella in return."

"Reasonable… treasonable, too. The Yahg might have used it elsewhere."

* * *

 _Losses and Cuts_

Felicia cooed, seeing her mother smile. She'd finished the bottle. Kelly kissed her child's cheek. For a wild moment she considered grabbing her sling and running; but it would hurt John, and might put Felicia at risk. _Be good for_ _John and_ _Hannah, darling_.

On the piano, Glyph began _Jupiter_.

* * *

 _Non-zero-sum_

"I'm not sure blackmail would have been worthwhile. What Antella provided in return for Kelly's messages was of only occasional value – identifying disaffected Alliance personnel who might be suborned as agents for the Broker, in particular. The _important_ thing was that Kelly was walking a fine line."

"So her messages to the broker ultimately wound up in the hands of the Alliance."

"And that's not all. From the pattern of Alliance rapid reaction to certain events, plus my VI analysis of metadata – like the times such material was passed on - it's clear there was information encoded in such messages as were sent."

"What information?" (EDI)

"I was able to detect steganography embedded in some of the images, but could not crack the cipher. The point is, I can tell you that the Alliance must have received _some_ information, not all of it known to Cerberus, from those psych conversations."

"So I was right? She _was_ a threat?"

"Yes, in principle, but a threat to who, exactly?"

This prompted Jana to point out the elephant in the room: "EDI. The main lesson to draw is that she was passing _Cerberus_ material to the _Alliance_ , through the Yahg."

Liara added a codicil: "There was nothing I know of that compromised _any_ of Shepard's operations. Except the bare fact of Shepard's continued existence, which made it out to the Alliance brass. That was how this all started."

On the piano, Glyph sègued into a part of _Saturn_ with bells tolling farewell.

* * *

 _Boojum Snark_

Harkin woke to the sound of his VI's _urgent/priority_ signal.

"Babe? You in trouble again?"

* * *

 _Proportionality_ _issues_

"… I'm telling you, I did not jettison any of my operatives, even inherited from the old broker, unless they were utterly beyond redemption. Which about a fifth of them were, actually, but not her. Kelly, of course, I was uniquely able to evaluate after the fall of the old Broker, and discovered two things. First–"

"She was not evil?" (EDI)

"Nor could be provoked to it. Next, should I harm her in any way, shape, or form–"

"Shepard would pursue you till the heat death of the universe," chortled Jana.

"Well put. Have you seen footage of when we took the Lair?"

"Yes. Liara, did you tell Shepard about her activities?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. He would not have missed the hint."

"If she wasn't doing evil… why did she dispatch those logs?"

"And others like it. You know, _that_ is still a good question. And we haven't answered it. Who would know? If we ask Chambers outright, there will be a scene. If we ask Antella, he'll report it to Hackett. What bugs me is, Shepard must know of this."

"Shepard's up. Perhaps it is time to bring him into this colloquy."

They trooped off to the kitchen.

Chambers, now with her new silks and teak box in her handbag, descended the near-door stairs, her long leather jacket over the skinsuit. She was unobserved, except by Glyph, coming to the end of _Saturn_ and planning synthesis of _Uranus_.

Quietly, without fuss, she walked out to the skycar stand, blending with the crowd.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #71, "Sprung"_

* * *

Thursday, August 8, 2015


	5. Sprung

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 71 **Sprung**

* * *

 _Clarity_

In the morning Brooks woke early but remained on her back, thinking hard. It was one of the few times in the day she could. In an hour she'd have a scanty breakfast before trooping off to scutwork or the occasional real job, but the tech rejects from the _sharashkas_ got most of those.

Clearly the vibrations and dim flash in the cut crystal 'star' indicated the medal back button functioned as a 'toggle' – that is, on/off. Green would mean it's going. Red, off.

There were no instructions whatsoever, which fit with the clandestine nature of the thing's delivery. That meant she was expected to work this out by herself. _Damn_. She sighed, and day-dreamed a little.

Maya Brooks, as she then was, had very little formal education beyond what Cerberus gave on crammer courses for whatever job they had in mind – one more thing to hate Chambers for, who'd had comfortably-off parents putting her through school. Otherwise, she was largely self-taught, picking up the occasional specialist skill as part of infiltration cover. But she did get an electrotech course unit, courtesy Cerberus.

Part of that had been Boolean algebra, the foundation for Karnaugh maps – a useful tool for thinking about microprocessor elements, covered in the cause of being able to follow a signal through a block diagram. Occasionally the sweetly nerdy young tutor waxed lyrical about the philosophical underpinnings of the math, and on "truth tables" day he'd mumbled something which actually stuck in memory:

 _Boolean algebra is in correspondence with Propositional logic and set operations_

In other words, threading your way through a hedge of "propositions," contingencies that are _TRUE_ or _FALSE_ , could be handled with the same engineering notation she was learning for wiring light switch arrays. That point, tutor illustrated with elementary examples – before moving on to the equivalence with set intersection, union, and complement, where he'd lost her. It was just too much at once, the fire hose method of education. So she'd gone up afterwards:

"The notion of proposition is incomplete, Ashok. With some you don't know T/F."

"Come again? A proposition is anything that's true or false."

"What about, ' _Will you come and celebrate diwali with me?_ ' That's a proposition."

The tutor grinned. "Let's make that one true. _Then_ it's a proposition." So in bed, she learned about Gödel incompleteness, and more immediately useful things. He really had been very sweet. Now he was a dead person on Cronos. If he was lucky. But he'd taught her how to parse a situation with logic. You begin by asking the right questions.

 _What do I want to ask myself?_

* * *

 _Fade away_

Not used to Citadel skycars – she didn't even have the endorsement on her competency certificate for them, something she'd have to address – Kelly took a couple of minutes to invoke the autopilot VI. It would take the slow corridors, but safely.

She had first visited an ATM on the arcade and drew out chits for several thousand credits, so paid with an untraceable credit chit for the transport. This eventually got her to a grimy construction area where 'Fade' hung out.

"Looking good, kid. New coat? And you've had a hairdo."

"It was good while it lasted, Harkin, but if I don't get out now people might get hurt. Maybe even me."

"Then I hope no-one knows you're gone, babe. Looking like that people will have noticed you."

"I know. My old refugee clothes are in here. Along with better ones. And I'll muss my hair. Is this your permanent address, as it were?"

Harkin looked around. His current place of business stood next to a cracked and torn area, part of the third of the presidium ring which was still structurally unsound. It was an organized sort of chaos, though. Only silent because awaiting titanium stringers from earth-side factories set up near ilmenite sands. He'd heard they might even be able to close the arms in another two months. He would have to shift again, soon.

"I hope not. There's no alcohol here."

"That'll explain why you're looking so much better."

"That's right, twist the knife. I can't go back to Earth, I'm wanted there. Well not by the law. There are people there who want me, in the worst possible way."

"Sorry. So you're on the run, too? I can give you some money. You never told me what I owed you."

Harkin gave the girl a long look. "Kid, you don't owe me anything. You're bought and paid for."

Kelly began to take off her coat. "But –"

"Don't worry about me and the cops here, kid, either. The ones I'd be concerned about don't bother me any more. The Reaper catastrophe simplified business. Hey, a skinsuit! Don't take that off up here. It'll block some of their sensors."

"They can't track me?" Kelly put her coat back on.

"With that outfit, only when a VI is told to use face recognition software. C-Sec's all-pervasive Presidium tracking net is, like, gonzo. In tiny little pieces. For now."

"Then I need to get off the Citadel, as soon as possible, while I still can."

"You could hide in the old refugee dock area. I tell you that's a nice skinsuit, kid. That should definitely crimp instant tracing even in new bits of the Citadel."

"What tracing? How?"

"Bailey's C-Sec DNA scanners. People shed epithelial cells which are picked up by security points. They can track you by the dust you leave behind, but that's unlikely wearing one of those things. And you'd have to be in their database in the first place. People with a record like me are, dammit. Only citizens have the right to have rights. Citizens' genomes usually are private, at least officially. Unless you're military."

"Oh. I see. I'm an ensign on detached duty. Surely they'd have my genome. I really have to get out of here. Can I get new travel documents?"

"Maybe possibly. It'll cost two thousand creds, kid, even for you."

Kelly handed over the money.

"Fine. You want to get to Earth? Arcturus is harder. One of the colonies? Easy, but you're military. Ensign's an officer, but even so if you go offline for more than a week and a day you're AWOL, so watch that. What name do you want?"

"Miranda Chambers."

"Let's see… should be okay, there were once eleven of those Earth-side. It's the right ethnicity and I should be able to steal some background from one of the eleven, to add artistic verisimilitude."

"Just do it quickly, please, Harkin."

"Anything for you, babe."

Fifteen minutes later, she reported to the Earth shuttle for Cheyenne.

 _The_ _Springs_

Colorado had never been a well-populated state. The only reason it drew Reaper attention at all was the presence of major UNAS military bases around Boulder, Colorado Springs, and other localities near the Continental Divide. There had been Space Force Academy, rather a shambles after an asteroid near-miss… and these days, there was the Mountain.

There wasn't anyone but a caretaker crew in it when Vancouver and Seattle had been hit with slaughter-ships, like Rio, but in the succeeding days the midwest was never even remotely under control for the Reapers. Asteroid strikes were too difficult to arrange in the numbers required, in the time available.

The really big ones hit Pittsburgh, Chicago… and Cheyenne mountain, for reasons no-one understood. On the arrival of the Reapers, it was just a not very popular museum. NORAD and Space Command days were centuries behind it. It had seen use as document storage, a genome bank, half a neutrino interferometer…

In any event, the kinetic strike missed by thirty kilometres. Big rocks were hard to guide. It then laughed off a paltry five megaton nuke; Reapers plastered molten metal over the obvious main access; and they _still_ hadn't killed off the caretakers. By the time they dug themselves out from one of (by then) five alternate access points, the Red Flash had passed and Huerta's government moved in.

The commercial shuttle landed nearby. Kelly changed into the old (but very clean, now) clothes she'd worn as a refugee, and became a temporary brunette. She took a ground-effect bus to Colorado Springs, still standing – sort of – where non-essential UNAS and Alliance offices were bustling.

Time to put her affairs in order. She applied for probate and quiet title on her parents' affairs, which would apparently take weeks. _In the meantime, with any luck no-one would be likely to disturb_ _me_ … But in that, she was disappointed. The tired-looking bureaucrat had no sooner finished processing Kelly's forms and palmed acceptance on her haptic display, when the VI _bonged_.

"Ms Kelly Chambers. First time back since the invasion. I'm sorry, ma'am, you need to check through immigration."

"What for!?"

"There's an indoctrination canary you have to pass, ma'am, and there's usually some fees outstanding but I don't see any here. Then your driver's license needs renewal, I can do that here for fifty credits."

Kelly passed the canary, but really didn't want to start using accounts in the name of Miranda Chambers when she had to be Kelly for however short a period.

"Here. I have a credit wand on local banks, but that's really petty cash."

"Thank you… done. Also you don't have an employer of record, you will have to show evidence of funds, one thousand credits minimum."

"Does everyone have to go through this?"

"For now, yes. Most people have a lot more baggage. You're pretty clean, actually. Generally the wait is much longer. Can I have access to your Alliance ID, ma'am, for the credit check?"

"There's cash in my handbag for rather more than that. I was going shopping for paint and tools."

The bureaucrat quickly counted some of her handbag funds, stopping at one thousand, and handed them back.

"That will do, ma'am. Have a nice day."

* * *

 _Fixi_ _ty_ _of purpose_

 _Let's see now: Mikhailovich left me this thing with no instructions. It's a_ test _. I think._

 _I want to know what it is. How to use it. WHEN to use it, since it's on, or off. Who to use it on, if it's something that can be used on someone_ –

– and here Brooks began an interior Socratic dialogue:

A tracker, perhaps. _But_ _who would I track? Myself? W_ _hy would the admirals want to track me? I'm not going anywhere. Or maybe I am, and I don't know it. In which case I'd better carry it with me at all times. But no, I can't do that here. And Mikhailovich knows that._ _It's got to be something I can leave_ _when necessary,_ _to avoid its discovery._

Maybe it's a bug. _That's a_ _possibility_ _. Someone wants to overhear my conversations. Or somebody's conversations when I'm in earshot. Maybe everyone's conversations._

Why _would the_ _fleet_ _want_ _any such thing_ _? They own this prison. They know what's going on at all times._ Wait. _It's the screws who know that. Baba Yaga knows that._ Mikhailovich _doesn't_.

Brooks pondered this from all angles, running it past everything she knew about the prison, the people, and the device.

What doesn't Mikhailovich know about, already? _He_ _'s_ _oversight. But for sure the screws might want to hide something from him. For sure there are things he might want to plausibly deny_ _knowing_ _, like using the Yahg for rubbish disposal, but this thing implies he suspects some other unsanctioned misbehaviour_.

Right then. Let's assume it's a bug. _But how would that work? We're hundreds of metres underground, in mineshafts sealed against vacuum with linings that are pretty good conductors. Faraday cage, forsooth._ _It's sure not electromagnetic._

Ah, but you know what that means, don't you? _It's a QEC. Got to be audio only, the power drain for anything else would be massive. Audio, with a lithium battery. It might have days of power, weeks, or months, I don't know. I_ can't _know._

 _A_ _nd Mikhailovich knows that. Powerloss is therefore not a consideration._

 _It might be something else, but this is the best I can do. For now. He wants better, he should have picked somebody with a better education._ _Hm. So_ _it's for use_ _on_ _others_ –

– Which others? _I can't be sure. Baba Yaga herself? It's not something I can plant on her without her knowing. Same applies to the other screws._

It's got to be carried around, or planted somewhere.

 _I_ _f I carry it around, I_ _turn it off, when I'm by myself, or on, when I'm not._

 _If I plant it somewhere, I leave it turned on._

 _I_ _t goes with me, till I'm sure._

* * *

 _Next chapter: #72, "Enigma variations"_

* * *

Thursday, August 6, 2015


	6. Enigma variations

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 72 **Enigma variations**

* * *

 _Honest serving men_

"In effect, _'How did your girl betray you?'_ That's a hell of a thing to ask."

"Shepard, we've been trying very very hard to keep the nature of your relationship with… well, everyone really, but especially Kelly, out of the public eye."

"…All right. Thank you. But?"

"But if EDI could have made the missteps she did, others might. We need to get a handle on some of these… loose ends."

"Okay. Go ahead."

"Do you recall, I put up for you a series of dossiers compiled by the old broker."

"Yes, I remember, vividly."

"One, for example, was a log of Kelly in conversation with Zaeed Massani _on board the Normandy._ Quite fascinating. And horrible, but mainly… revealing."

"Because she was the only person reasonably likely to have passed the log on."

"Just so. You spotted that?"

"It was a hell of an attention-getter Liara. Yes."

"And? Did you do anything about it?"

"I didn't tackle her directly, no. By then I didn't have to, you were the Shadow Broker, I figured you'd tell me of anything untoward, and it felt like we didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle."

"Did you find out the whole story later? Or should I fill you in now?"

"Actually she told me about the psych reports and so forth when we… um, mostly after the Cerberus coup. _Much_ later, I guess."

"What's this 'and so forth?'"

"Let's just say I learned a lot, _except_ the identity of her handlers."

Liara nodded. "She came to see me after we took the Lair. On my visit back. I couldn't get that out of her either. But I did get, I think, rather a lot. And a promise."

"And she told Mom I was alive, _after_ EDI had me restrict outgoing messages."

"Oh." EDI looked a little taken aback. "Was that her doing? Of course."

In the TV area, the Admirals had turned off the TV, including the audio field dampeners, just as _Uranus_ blared forth out of Glyph's piano.

"Bloody hell, Hannah, get them to put a sock in it."

* * *

 _The Master_

"…As for her controller, it was pretty clearly someone in the Alliance. I didn't press for details because guilt over telling the Illusive Man all my foibles had been making her do silly things. How did she do that, Liara? Did you find anything?"

Liara grew uncharacteristically dark in mood, wrestling with a deepening suspicion.

"I did, Shepard. First, that the first messages about Cerberus predated the _Normandy_ SR2. She seems to have been hired by Cerberus straight out of college…"

"McGill. The Milner prize. Harper could sure pick winners. Except…"

"Chambers began to spill Cerberus secrets almost at once. Next, can I observe your Mom found you were alive via Kelly."

"Yeah. How? Who did she tell? And how? Didn't EDI censor her comms?"

"The Shadow Broker, who at her request sold it to the Admiralty's usual buyer of Shadow Broker secrets, one Caleb Antella, who told Hackett, who told Hannah."

"I always wondered why Hackett tolerated that asshole. Dammit, if I'd known…"

"You'd have done nothing, Shepard. Kelly thought she was doing the right thing."

"Yeah, I can see that. By then…"

A shadow loomed behind them. "By then EDI had put a firewall on _Normandy_ communications, but the Shadow Broker had ways around that. Her messages _had_ to reach me through the Shadow Broker."

Admiral Hannah Shepard stood behind the sofa, looking somber.

* * *

 _D'oh what a tangled web_

"Mom!"

"You are all perfect idiots."

Hackett was there too, leaning against the partition now, showing the interest Caesar might display in which gladiator would survive the arena.

"EDI… I suppose you have an excuse. Think of this as an education."

Glyph had switched to _Neptune_ , a much quieter music. Something his mother had said earlier finally clicked with John.

"Mom, how long have you known Kelly, exactly?"

"Let's just say, a long time. I hired her straight out of high school, heard she was trying for a signals scholarship. GCSB offered her something else, with hazard pay."

Liara interposed: "I've just figured that out. She was never _my_ spy, was she?"

Hannah had a crooked grin at that. "Oh, she gave _you_ good data."

"But not that idiot Harper."

"No. Nor the Yahg. I had two agents in his system, thanks to her."

"Are they still there?!"

"That would be telling."

 _What's the story_

"…She was _mine_. At least until she had to use the Shadow Broker as a drop box."

"But the Yahg was your second target after Cerberus, anyway."

"Damn straight. It looked really promising. Except my wonderful son went and stuffed things up." _Now_ the Admiral looked faintly cheesed.

" _Mom!"_

Hackett came in at this point. "That was my fault, son. After you walloped the Alpha Relay with the asteroid? And wiped out Aratoht? What did I tell you?"

"…Yes? You said I had to be prepared to face trial, in my dress blues."

"And all of a sudden, none of Kelly's reports had anything on you _at all_. It took Hannah a while to figure it out."

Suddenly understanding, Shepard clasped his hand to his forehead. "Oh… damn. She was trying to protect me. Straight afterwards came the suicide mission. The squad pulled the crew from their pods. She danced for me, when it was all over."

"I do assure you, you were the first to experience _that_ teen boy fantasy. She was yours, by then. How in heaven's name did you manage that, John? Did you do more than heavy petting? From her childhood she had a cloud of boys and girls wanting to be with her. Remarkably few got close."

"So how come she didn't have a boyfriend?"

"Come on, John, you know how it works. How many girls were wanna-be girlfriends of my athlete genius son?"

"Too many. But I'm no genius." At this, Liara emitted a short burst of hysterical laughter. Shepard looked around but even EDI wouldn't meet his gaze. _Bloody hell, is_ that _what they think?_ Change the subject, quick.

"Anyway, the ship girls were all daughters of senior officers. Career-breakers."

"Right, we can agree on that. Likewise, Kelly never found anyone for herself. She couldn't fix on a boy without hurting some other boy."

"I'll bet the competition was fierce," said Liara with a wry grin.

"Yep, to the point it would have been difficult to choose. But which of those sighing swains would still love her when she was sixty-four? Hooking up early would have destroyed any career; and above all, _she could see right through them_."

 _Morning Glory_

"… God. My poor girl."

"I practically had a screaming fit when I got her first messages, well before yours to me, and realized she was under your command. But thank God, there was Miranda too… who might have been a pirate with a badge, but she was _your_ naughty girl and I was able to get her off the worst charges. Doctrine of necessity."

"But… why would Kelly being on my ship be bad?"

"Are you kidding? She understood and subverted people's funny ideas of right, and wrong, and themselves. She's a _weapon of mass_ _distraction_ I'd thrown at Harper, and _my son_ gets in the firing line!"

"Okay, I see that…"

" _Do_ you though? I think you were the first man Kelly felt she couldn't cope with, when you were focused. You didn't try to exploit her, either. Stop muttering."

"I get it, already. And we did sort of circle each other a while, Mom."

"That's not exploiting."

EDI stood up. "Admiral, can we get back to who she was working for? It is important to me. You are saying that she was _your_ agent– "

"… in a certain sense, Harper might have thought Kelly was _his_ Venus trap, but–"

"She _did_ get me, Mom. Or she had me hooked, even if she never reeled me in."

"In absolute violation of my instructions, I might add. EDI, you just did your job." This gross injustice wounded Shepard:

"Kelly was just being herself!"

"She wasn't _supposed_ to be herself! Except around Harper. A fire-drake would be less dangerous! All the same, you got _her_ , too. Inadvertent Mars got his Venus. "

Liara exhaled, in relief. "No, Mars was a buffoon, and they were siblings. Cupid?"

"A baby angel with a toy bow? Not me."

"No, Shepard, not a putto. Eros _destroyed lives_ in olden times, when Mycenae went to war over Helen, and the wealth of families depended on daughters making good marriages. _"Th_ _e dragon-like creature who harasses the world with fire and iron and is feared by even Jupiter and the inhabitants of the underworld."_ So Cupid was a god _Apollo_ feared."

"With those bloody arrows. Yeah."

"Point is, _both_ _of you_ _were mine, never Harpers_. Anyway, we're good? Life can go on?" asked Hannah, brightly.

Shepard looked like thunder:

"Wait a moment. Kelly wasn't allowed to date me?"

"It wasn't explicit, but early on I kept her well away from _you_. I'd bet she noticed. When we managed to get her to Cerberus I never dreamed any such conjunction might happen, you were _dead_ , and my contact with her was sporadic, by drop box only."

"And pretty much impossible after I blocked her," observed EDI.

"Yes, thank you _**so**_ much, but it turned out acceptably."

Liara looked a bit sour, but nodded. "I suppose Felicia is worth the loss of an agent, even a unique… asset, like her?"

"Professionally speaking, no. I should be frothing at the mouth. Somehow I'm not."

Hackett harrumphed:

"Don't kid yourself. You were tickled pink."

"And you just laughed at me when I tried to be rational. Even so, Kelly should have anticipated my views on exerting those peculiar talents of hers on John. That would have been a no-no."

"Bad for my career? Did you ever relax that prohibition?"

"Not in so many words, she's family now! Besides, it was worse for _her_ career, especially. I had great things planned. You're a man, people make allowances, I've had to drop Kelly like a hot potato, careerwise."

"Uh huh. Have you told _her_ that?"

"Didn't have to. It's kind of blindingly obvious. Oh dear…"

"Mom. Tell me about that Oh Dear, please."

"I may have said while she was still a postgraduate that if she got herself knocked up by a boy before her time, her life would be over."

At that point they heard a thin wail from the upstairs bedroom.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #73, "Breaking"_

* * *

Friday, August 7, 2015


	7. Breaking

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 73 **Breaking**

* * *

 _H_ _eartbreak_ _hotel_

"It's a waste. Kelly's life, I mean. I'd like to do something about it."

"So would we all. But that noise is why we can't."

"Why is Felica still crying?" – asked Liara, thinking: _Short-lived species. Twenty-odd years to raise a human child, a third of the mother's_ _natural_ _life_. "Is Kelly asleep?"

"Maybe. She'll wake fuzzily and deal with it, trust me. For a while I was just another Mom too, John. But I knew I was raising someone special. Her body will work to adapt her mind to the sacrifice of her best years. It's a terrible treason of hormones, but the renewal of generations depends on it."

Shepard turned to Hackett. "What the heck can we do, Admiral? What do I tell her? That she has to live the rest of her youth as just another Mom?"

"Son, what do I know? I'm fifty-odd. I was just an enlisted man, didn't get the treatments early, so I look my age. I'll live to a hundred and forty, tops. Hannah still looks young, but she's been through the trials Kelly faces now. In another sixty years I'll find another line of work, then retire. Hannah's got longer, but old folks like us–"

"You're not that old."

"We're still the slag on the steel, son, the dross on the wind. Only the seeds that remain have value. Felicia's mom will find something to do with that brain of hers."

Hannah sighed. "Right. Go wake her up and bring both of them down, John. We can at least tell her how much _we_ know her value, even if she never gets the chance to show it off."

"About time. This isn't over. I'll work something out."

Shepard began to make his way upstairs, Liara following behind. He could hear the ongoing sussuration of serious talk. All this had left a bad taste in his mouth. Talk wouldn't fix this.

When he saw the empty bed, and the note, his heart missed more than one beat, the world went around, and he went down.

* * *

 _Contrasts_

The first days looked like passing without incident. Murmured conversations of the usual kind, probably picked up by the screws' monitoring service anyway. But that evening Brooks was called aside by her turian guard: _"Tomorrow you go on mining duty, Maya. Behave. One grows fond of you. Don't get spaced."_

* * *

 _Blender_

Chambers' first impulse was to see if she could find something to do, prompted by the bureaucrat's comments. But she wasn't lacking cash or creds.

She really needed a low-profile job. Although there seemed to be a great many positions available, most were menial or semi-menial (supervising VIs and mechs).

That in itself was fine, but she'd have to stay some time in the position, and if she was going to do that she'd rather do it nearer her ultimate destination.

Ideally, she'd take a job as teacher, a low-profile position. On the one hand, she was well qualified – academically. On the other hand, she didn't have union accreditation. But over half the population had died, including the unionists in the cities. These days, everyone had to do everything. The old stratifications of society, hardening into castes like the Batarians, were fractured.

On the gripping hand, the death rate for children had been even higher than for adults. There were very few kids left to teach. Many babies, like Felicia, but too young even for kindergarten. These notions made her even more heartsick, to the point of paralysis for nearly an hour. The blood on the wall hadn't belonged to her family. Had her sisters met a fate comparable to her pod? Did her parents die in the river? No-one knew; but husked, pasted, or collateral damage, they were gone like millions of others.

Eventually she succeeded in walking down _le cafard_. Sleep helped.

What about industry? Unlike many Psych graduates, her father had seen to it she knew not simply how to extract a square root, but how Stokes' theorem parented Gauss' theorem, Green's theorem in the plane ( _"The only version I ever used in anger, kellybaby"_ ), the curl forms of Maxwell's equations, and other less beautiful results only an engineer could love.

 _None_ of that was of immediate use, but she could get a job as a cadet tech. Her neuropsych speciality certainly would get her a better position, in major centres like Charleston…

That was also a good way to be found in a hurry.

And it wasn't near her island.

* * *

 _Recovery positions_

The first person to arrive on John's cry was Oriana. Liara by the time she made it up had almost recovered from the shock. They sat Shepard up on the bed, while Oriana checked his pulse: "John, you fainted. What is it?"

He found he was still holding the note, and passed it over. Liara swore something in an asari dialect which was not autotranslated.

Hackett strode up, Hannah not far behind. "Son, you scared me shitless. What –"

Liara held up a hand.

"Admiral, Kelly somehow overheard our earlier discussions with EDI, and she's gone. She thinks –"

"Oh _crap_ _._ "

"She thinks she's here so we can confront her and perhaps put her away."

Shepard hadn't seen his mother wail and collapse since the news about his father; she was much older now. So was he. Slowly, stiffly, despite the grim rigor which appeared to have infected his joints, he got up and held her as she sank to her knees. It took around five minutes before they were able to move without supporting each other. But in that time, Hackett, Liara and EDI were setting regiments in motion.

About fifty minutes too late.

* * *

 _Processes_

Nothing new about mining. Brooks had spent her 'childhood', for want of a better word, in that life. She knew sufficient applied selenology to guide the teams tracing pockets of eezo.

Petrovsky hadn't, didn't, and complained, but in his time yanking eezo out of Omega he'd learned mining management. Military organizational skills made him the obvious choice as team leader, but he tended to vent his spleen when the capos were on break:

"I'm wasted here."

"So are we all, Oleg, bear with it. Really this is a doddle." _Not least because_ _we do_ _n't_ _actually_ _have to control mechs or_ _breath the dust ourselves_ _._

Petrovsky grunted: "In truth, life could be much worse."

He cast an eye on his "service personnel" – armies of indoctrinated humans who had gone under Salarian knives and had the circumcranial scar to show it. He and Brooks only had to look at them for a reminder of how much worse life could be.

"Why didn't _we_ end up like them, do you think?"

"Maya, no-one's going to muck around with your head. You're not a psychopath, not really, and you were never indoctrinated. I'd have no compunction about sending most of this mob, as they once were, to Doctor Haleuse. But high-end human brains are degraded by de-indoctrination."

"I know. You can see it in their – their – I don't have a word for it, it's just the whole way they don't behave connected."

"Ungestalt?"

"Bless you. The ones I feel sorry for are the ones the Reapers got hold of. Like Lisa and Trevor, over at the vacuum drill. _They_ had skills."

* * *

 _That demmed elusive…_

 _Not to put too fine a point on it, I should vanish_. She had already decided on a nonsense name: Alma Thiers, spoken with a faint French accent. She didn't have documents to back it up but if she felt she needed them, Miranda Chambers would do.

By this time it was nearly half past five. Very few now owned personal transport; there was a massive manufacturing boom, but most of what was coming out was still hydrogen-powered ground-effect trucks, buses, and STOVL aircraft which could be fuelled with the remaining tech and travel the remaining roads.

She couldn't safely hitch a ride with a truck. Better to pay chits for an air ticket.

None of the public transport utilities – except the monorail, which had been repaired as far as Denver, a hundred klicks off – had anything going north for hours. West was out of the question, that way madness lay. East was a different matter, and the easiest solution looked like a plane to Charleston.

In the end she hopped on a metro GE bus to the airport, really just a jump pad now, but had been open to scheduled flights for months. Nearly all the airlines were new ventures – at least, she hadn't learned their names before.

There was a transient's cube hotel just outside Peterson Village, doing good business, where she took shelter. But she didn't go to bed at once, choosing to visit the airport first, absorbing the pulse of activity and life, visiting the old terminal, which was a bit of a wreck now but had gardens.

She sat on a park bench as the sun descended, trying hard to avoid thinking about what had been her family. Not with great success. She allowed herself a tear, but self-pity sat badly on a woman who had deserted her child.

At six in the evening, she went in search of a worker's bar. By the end of two hours, and a lot of fending off or avoiding unwanted attention – from women as well as men – she had identified an underboss who knew of a fake ID specialist.

She'd see about that tomorrow.

* * *

 _Seek and ye shall find_

Initially, with EDI's assistance, they were able to project the last few images of the internal surveillance and determined: "God damn, that was over fifty minutes ago! _Glyph!_ Why didn't you say something?"

"Has something unusual happened, Captain?"

After a slightly disorganized period of _What the f_ … _do we DO?,_ Bailey had arrived with a small attaché case which opened to reveal a Citadel Surveillance interface.

"That's funny."

"What?"

"There's nothing from the DNA scanners. She isn't leaving skin traces. I've seen that with your other friend –"

"Miranda Lawson?"

"That's her. She's got a company selling patented environment suits which trap the epithelials, or zap them. Bloody expensive, but annoyed the hell out of Chellick. He wanted to lock her up."

"She'd declare war, legally speaking."

"Exactly what her asari lawyers said. Look, it doesn't matter. Get your AI – what's the name?"

"I am called EDI, Commander Bailey".

"Edie, can you sort through and ID her on the surveillance feeds? This is Chambers, right? The golden blonde? That's bloody rare these days."

"Close enough. Sanders is a similar color, it can't be _that_ uncommon."

"Trust me, it helps."

"The Commander is quite correct, Admiral. BLON-D is a recessive gene, almost bred out of the population."

With EDI's assistance they followed the movements of a head of bright recessive hair out to the Sky Taxi pad of the arcade, and saw Kelly board the skycab.

"Picture's a bit grainy, Bailey."

"We use flying pindot cameras so the bad guys don't see them, Shepard, the lens is half a millimetre wide and that imposes an irreducible diffraction limit unless we link several in an inteferometric array. Also it's as high-res as it needs to be, any more and we'd have data retention problems."

"What docking port?"

"None. She's heading, or rather she headed, to an industrial park, next to the ring repair boundary. In a minute – yep, there we go, she's passed the navpoint region. We've got no camera surveillance from here on, just transponder feed. The autopilot VI's on visual flight rules. We've got the car's position but no video feed exists."

"Has she stopped?"

"Yes. No, wait, it moved after twelve minutes. The skycar's on the way to… hell, it's on the way to Tayseri skyport."

"So?"

"It's only been back in operation for two days. There's no surveillance there. Someone's told her how to avoid the cameras."

* * *

 _Daylight Robbery_

The new ID attempt was a disaster, albeit mitigated by some scouting of exit points. ("What would Shepard do? Oh wait. What would _Miranda_ do?")

The rendez-vous point was an _ad hoc_ unlicensed bottle store doing a side business in drugs and thermal clips. She showed up at 11am as ordered, wearing her coat over her skinsuit; not only was it unseasonably cold that day, but she did not want her Suppressor on its clip to be seen. If the little holdout pistol passed a scanner, good. If not, she'd leave.

At least that was the plan. It lasted about twenty seconds, the time required for the "ID fixer" to make an excuse to leave the room. She had been ready for this; the vibes were bad – but she couldn't back out because there was ominous activity in the shop front, the door closing. _Probably after my cash_. She didn't stay in the room either, and quickly moved to the toilet down the corridor. Unfortunately she was seen by the fixer's heavy who was to move in on her, as she closed the toilet door and locked it.

It only took them twenty seconds to force it open. But it only took her _ten_ seconds to leap on the cistern and through the grill she'd weakened from the outside. The next half-minute became a parkour exercise.

Oaths and imprecations followed as she sprinted down a rubble-strewn lane. Someone fired a shot after her; she dodged into a junkyard. The idea was to leap the fence at the back, toward the boulevard. But the internal gate had closed. She swung back to the entrance and crouched on one knee, bringing up her little gun. This would have to be a headshot, just one bullet if she could manage it.

The heavy rounded the corner, spotted her compacted form barely visible in the portico, and fired another wild shot. It passed metres away. _Her_ single shot entered the heavy's right eyeball and caromed around the interior of the skull before exiting.

Chambers got up again to run like the wind, but hesitated: _What would_ _Shepard_ _do?  
_ She ran, indeed, but back to the toilet window, slipping back in while she heard the fixer frantically packing up. Quietly as she could, she slipped through his workship door, placing her M-11's muzzle to the back of his neck, saying nothing at first, letting touch do the talking. The fixer rose very slowly, hands up.

"I will say this once. You will produce an ID in the name of Alma Thiers, _d'origine_ _q_ _u_ _é_ _becois_ _e_ , as negotiated last night. You have fifteen minutes."

He took five. His hands were shaking very badly, but his cobbled-together glass-master press suffered no such problems, and produced the required ID.

"Now get in the vault then pull it behind you. I'll tell the VI to open after an hour. What's the passphrase?" (The fixer protested.) "You're right. I should just kill you."

The fixer very rapidly backed into the vault, stipulating: " _Motherfucker"_.

"Wrong sex." She raised the gun again.

 _"_ _No, that's the passphrase!"_

Kelly paused, considering for five seconds, while the fixer stared shivering down the gaping mouth of an M-11 Suppressor.

"I think Shep would kill you. But I can't be sure. If I hear you have ratted me, I will return to do what Miri would have done. Think about it." (The fixer had no idea who Shep or Miri might be, but desperately wished not to find out what either would do.)

Then she closed the door, secured the vault – instructing the VI appropriately – and used the fixer's comm to leave a text message concerning a corpse outside.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #74, "Crime control"_

* * *

Friday, August 7, 2015


	8. Crime control

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 74 **Crime control**

* * *

 _Justice_

Well before the hour was up, the local militia captain had identified the heavy and his usual place of employment. On probable cause being supplied, he entered the shop twenty minutes later, noted the various Instruments For Use In The Furtherance Of Crime, and confiscated them. The captain was almost as surprised as the fixer when the vault opened.

The militia then took down his improbable description of events before banging up the ID fixer on suspicion of murder. Motive was a large amount of cash on the heavy's person – nearly three hundred credits. This was thought to be payment for a deal gone wrong. And the pellet, probably subsonic hollow-point, had not been found. But the fixer only said there had been an attempted robbery (he did not say of whom), he saw nothing – he had after all been locked in the vault – and knew nothing.

The Positron Emission Tomographic Asymptomatic Revision Detector showed he wasn't openly lying, but was holding something back. There was no corroborating evidence: this was not a monitored area of town. Eventually, the militia would probably have to let the bugger go. But he deserved to sweat for a bit.

A day later, the forensic report came back. It was the ME's opinion that the wound was inflicted by a hollow-point pellet dialed down to subsonic speeds, typical of a holdout weapon used discreetly by a professional. Perhaps the fixer had told the truth.

* * *

 _Auld lang syne_

Petrovsky stared. "You _know_ these people?" Not that these grey sheep were people.

"Sure. Some. You don't? Lisa and Trevor were my era. Look, Cerberus wasn't that big when I was there, maybe a dozen cells and a few dozen skilled staff in each cell."

The general seethed grimly for a moment before responding:

"Harper hired me to command an _army_ – there's no way to remember them all."

"When was this? After Shepard slagged the Aratoht system with the Alpha relay?"

"Precisely. When it was clear the Reapers would have to take an alternate route but _would_ get to us within a year or so. Henry's cell recruited the raw material from colonies along the projected route and handed them off to me as 'inducted volunteers.' Half way into the contract it became clear Cerberus was basically kidnapping them or hiring them under misleading terms of adhesion."

"That didn't bother you?"

"By then it was clear those colonies were going to die anyway. And it was too late to back out without fatal consequences."

* * *

 _Delayed beam_

EDI's mobile was in a trance. It had been nearly seven hours since losing track of Kelly; she had decided to trace her the hard way, sorting through recognition frames. Eventually she stirred:

"Admiral, I have found an anomaly."

"Hit me."

"I have identified a person with Kelly's Bertillonage parameters, wearing the same cut of coat, but brown hair, arriving on an autopilot skycar at EarthLines docking port three, to catch an EL ship scheduled to leave…"

"Stop it!"

"… around about now, video time. Don't forget, this is timestamped nine hours ago. She's long gone, on the EL transit shuttle to Colorado Springs eight and a half hours ago."

 _Suspect_

The militia head mentioned the curious incident to the colonel of military liaison, who had the surveillance feeds for the boulevard checked. On reading the file, the colonel wondered why he was bothering. The mysterious one-shot killer had done everyone a favor. Except the heavy, who turned out to be a Very Bad Man, and the fixer, who was squealing all _sorts_ of interesting things.

Except the ID of the killer, who apparently scared him more than the cops.

On reviewing the file for the relevant time, militia VI noted that traffic was, as usual, very light. There were not many possible culprits. The only even faintly unusual person was a poised dark-haired young woman in a new coat, boarding a bus for the east of town.

Perhaps the airport. But she did not appear on the boarding cameras. The colonel sighed, and instructed the VI to search the DNA sniffer logs. The airport was one of the few places that had them.

The whole office exploded with alarms as the VI found a sniffer match with a VIP fugitive who'd passed through immigration a few dozen hours earlier. _Not_ flagged as a criminal on the run, no, but Important People very much wanted to speak with Ms Chambers.

 _Sovereignty_

Damn, double damn, and triple damn. Not just UNAS, but Colorado Springs.

"Can't we go and get her, Admiral?"

"No, Shepard. She's a free woman, traveling in her own country on her own business. The Alliance has no jurisdiction there except what we can negotiate with that damn robot. And while he's been good about meeting the UNAS funding obligations to the Alliance, he's a holy terror on unsupervised Alliance military personnel wandering around his territory, especially Russians. We'll need a liaison."

"What about me? I'm still a Spectre, last I looked."

"He'd respect that. But he'd have a posse of black-clad SW troops following your every move."

"Damn. This doesn't call for an armed response. Kelly sees one of them, she'll run a mile."

"I'll have a word with the UNAS general staff."

* * *

 _Oleg_ _'s C_ _hoice_

"Never too late to get out, Oleg. I got out. So did Lawson. So did Shepard."

" _You_ got out early, and because you hated aliens. Shepard – this is hard to express–"

"Hah. He wasn't a priority for Harper, so was left alone?"

"Actually, Harper thought Shepard might still be useful. But yes, no-one, even Harper, wanted to become one of Shepard's priority targets. Even so, Kai Leng was eventually permitted to have a go. He tried three times."

"I hear Shepard took _him_ out."

"You see what I mean about not wanting to be a priority target, then?"

"Oh, I do. Another reason you should have got out, General."

"I've no claim to Shepard's interest, and the Illusive Man didn't take rejection well."

"Lawson had a price on her head–"

"More than one, she annoyed _lots_ of other people too. Harper – was more subtle."

"Idiots. I notice none of them are around any more. Lawson's head was negotiable?"

"Lawson has a fixed policy of collecting the heads of those who put a price on her head. Harper felt he just had to _'contain the situation.'_ He thought she understood."

"Strictly business, huh?"

"In any event, Harper sent _me_ after T'Loak. Getting rid of her, and Omega, would have been a blow for good, and an act of mercy. So I stayed."

"You're _such_ a humanitarian, Oleg."

"Wash your mouth out with soap, Maya. Point is, I was responsible for thousands of troopers, anonymous colonists mostly. Didn't look at them too closely."

"Glowing eyes, and all!"

"That was Henry bloody Lawson's doing, and Harper's! I didn't know them personally! And anyway, how did they wind up here?"

"Who do you think took surviving troopers off T'Loak's hands? Besides, _you_ ran riot with those Adjutant monsters. What did you make _them_ out of? Your own troopers?"

"Sometimes happened, by mistake. Other raw material was Omega's slumdogs, and I don't feel too guilty about _them_. Cerberus didn't make huge numbers, they were mostly prototypes and made off-station. In any event, the Adjutants were a rational response to Reaper creatures like scions, cannibals, marauders, husks, whatever – our Adjutants would eat them all and make more Adjutants!"

"Cerberus used Omega as a base for taking over Terminus colonies–"

"I'm sorry about the colonists and even the Omega people, but point is, _they were all going to die anyway!_ If I did nothing. So I took a leaf out of the Russian playbook."

"It's your playbook too? You ever talk to the Alliance brass about this?"

"They'd never acknowledge it. But if Mikhailovich could send penal battalions to certain death against Reaper forces, I can sure as hell do the same with Adjutants that used to be people who would otherwise be husks!"

Brooks was silent a moment.

"–And you don't want to remember your troopers' faces?"

"There were just too many. Tens, in the end hundreds of thousands. With the best will in the world I can't even remember their _names_ –"

"Come with me."

* * *

 _Kelly's C_ _hoice_

She changed out of the skinsuit and donned her quotidian, less 'fashionable', refugee fatigues. The rest of the afternoon, she took in the mile-high sun at the airport café.

It did not make her feel warmer. Kelly was having a bad day.

Her nerves were still on edge with the fixer incident. She'd killed a man, for the second time in her life, and his heels had drummed on the ground just like the Cerberus trooper's had; her parents and siblings were no more, her child lost to her.

The pain wasn't going away. It had dulled with sleep, knitting up the famous ravel'd sleeve of care, but professionally speaking she well knew that if she didn't get some rest soon, the ongoing nightmare would scar her thinking and stain her world forever.

But rest where?

She couldn't go back to her new family. If EDI and the rest were openly discussing what she'd done while cut off from Hannah, to stay good simultaneously with Cerberus and the Shadow Broker, what did that portend? Almost in her unaided hearing too, in what had briefly been another home. Even John was downstairs. So were both the Admirals. Only Miranda was off-scene.

Nor could she yet go to the island and take some sort of refuge in the shell of her childhood. There would be no death certs or probate for months. Even if she could, it wouldn't take long for the Shepards to track her down. What then?

That left life on the run, alone save for nightmares whinnying in her ears.

Kelly clearly could forget about any settled life beyond raising a child. She'd become a liability to John when she asked to be with him. Some kind of confrontation was surely pending, and John would be expected to make a choice. Her, or a ship, perhaps. Kelly could easily see Hannah laying it out in those terms. Once she might have expected Admiral Shepard to support and sustain her. Not now. Her usefulness was at an end, except as an adjunct to Felicia.

And as for what EDI was complaining of, clearly Liara hadn't worked out where her real handler was. What must Liara have thought of her, when she found her little posts to the old Shadow Broker?

Yet Liara loved her. Some mystery there. Maybe speak to Liara. _Be ready to run_.

Could she go so far as to break silence, spill the beans, reveal her instructions? To John, at least? What prayer did she have of surviving Hannah's wrath if she did? Even if John took her side, his relations with his friends and family would be forever tainted.

And John might not take her side at all. She had contacted the old Broker when Hannah's instructions failed her – a triple cross, all she could think of to do, but from a legal standpoint a much more straightforward treason than the delicate double game between Alliance and Cerberus.

John, she obscurely felt, would one day be strong enough to take the disgrace. He'd taken the consequences of the Alpha Relay, after all, while she cowered among the refugees. But right now, he still wasn't well. She had no business asking him to make a choice between her and his mom.

The flipside of that, of course was that she should never have abandoned him. Or her infant. Even if her silence meant her condemnation, and his. But what's done is done. _Too late to consider that now,_ _anyway_.

Professionally, she could tell this was really beginning to eat away at her. It was like permanently living with a noose around one's neck. Maybe she'd be better off dead. Seriously, she should have let the heavy get her. If there was any reality behind the Abrahamic religions, she'd at least see her family again. For a moment. One moment.

That was not what Miranda would do, though. Nor Oriana. Nor Shepard.

 _Rally, girl._ _Prioritize._ _You have to get a job. Before winter._ Best place appeared to be Charleston; time to go. She had purchased a ticket for the 1545 flight, and settled down in the boarding lounge. The boarding call sounded, a little late.

* * *

 _Robot Law_

Hackett was having administrative interface issues, even with EDI's help.

In 2183, the UNAS president was fully human, despite having parts of his prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and motor cortex replaced by a bluebox, supplemented with spinal taps to implants _and_ a graybox cemented to his pelvis ( _"I always knew the bastard had a hindbrain.")_

EDI knew this, because the UNAS Supreme Court said so, admittedly by a 5-4 margin on partisan lines, and what the UNAS Supremes said at that time had to be true, constitutionally. What the legislative and judicial majority wanted, they had received. So Christopher Huerta remained President, albeit arguably a dead one.

Much joy they had of that victory… Not. Huey Long once said of Louisiana that one day its people would have clean and efficient government – and they would hate it. Something like this was put to the test for the whole UNAS, following the Reaper invasion.

After the Alpha Relay destroyed Aratoht, threats from the Batarians prompted the "robot" President Huerta, and his thoroughly human vice president, to introduce legislation furthering anti-corruption measures. These went nowhere, but flagrant vote- and judgment-buying by the opponents gave the executive huge popular support vis-à-vis the legislative and judicial branches, which later proved crucial.

Now, in 2187, after a few galaxy-shaking wars and a population less than half that of 2185, the UNAS ran efficiently, despite that fact that the legislative and judicial branches had effectively ceased to exist, leaving only the Robot.

It was actually getting to speak to the Robot that Hackett was having trouble with.

* * *

 _Serenade_

The two Service workers Brooks approached with Petrovsky were both ethnic Chinese, the woman with the classic orchid mouth. The man looked to Petrovsky like a native of Manchuria, strong and pink-complexioned, fed on steak and potatos. Both _zeks_ had the dreadful tonsure of the CrimPath rectification labs.

"Lisa, sit." 'Lisa' sat one side of the usual portable table with eight places.

This _zek_ looked to be a little younger than Brooks, early thirties if she'd had anti-agathic therapy; early twenties, otherwise. Same applied to the man approaching. For a moment Petrovsky thought he saw a flash of animated expression in place of the eternal enforced calm of the Service, but Brooks looked up: "Trevor, you too," – and indicated the seat beside the woman. Deliberately, the man complied.

Brooks sat opposite, and motioned for Petrovsky to do the same: "Tell the General your names, first thing."

"Trevor T'So." "Lisa Wong."

Petrovsky raised one eyebrow. Brooks sighed: "It's normal for Chinese in English-speaking nations to take an English first name, Oleg. What happens in Russia?"

"Much the same. What is the point of all this, Brooks?"

"Just listen. I'll talk. You have any questions, ask."

And so it began. _Lisa, who am I?_ – asked Brooks.

"You are Hope Lilium."

"Do you remember me from Cronos or Minuteman?"

"I recall your face. But we have not met."

"You trained as Alliance tech specialists. Do you remember the Alliance postings?"

"No."

"Or joining Cerberus?"

"No."

"Where were you born? Trevor, you first."

"I do not know, supervisor." "Nor I."

"How old are you?" The _zeks_ looked briefly at each other, shrugged:

"We do not know, supervisor."

"Do you recall teaching seaborne assault SCUBA praxis?"

"No."

"Could you perform a seaborne infiltration today?"

"I would need SCUBA gear."

"Assume that were supplied."

"Then yes."

"Trevor, do you recall doing the stainless-steel welding on Lisa's shark cage?"

"No."

"Could you weld such a thing – given marine grade two-centimetre stainless steel?

Trevor considered this a moment: "Yes."

"A moment, Maya, if you please."

"What is it, Oleg?"

"All you have shown me is that the Service takes the indoctrinated, or Cerberus inductees, or psychopaths, and creates perfect new people with useful skills and occasionally memories, but no linking life. This I already knew."

"Bear with me, General. You might be surprised. Have you heard of split-brain patients?" (Petrovsky frowned. It rang a bell.) "Lawson told me about them, before I left. Corpus callosum being severed as anti-epileptic measure. Early technique, centuries ago. The right field of view went to one side of the brain, the left to another, and no longer did the two integrate them. One side, the side with the speech centres, got to express its point of view, the other did not. But the hand under the control of the other side would occasionally start writing a protest."

"Fascinating. Are these split-brain patients? At a much finer grain of slicing?"

"Sliced, bridged, and reconnected. So Lisa, do you remember Trevor?"

"No. Yes. I recall the face."

"You two remember _none_ of your lives together?"

"No." "No."

"Guys, you do not recall your honeymoon together on Intai'sei? Being in love?"

"No."

"Do you remember art?"

"I remember old pictures, when I see them." said Lisa. "Playing music," said Trevor. "Old songs. Instruments that do not need power. Acoustic guitar. Piano. When I hear them."

"That is well. We do not have a piano to accompany you, but can you sing a song for us, Trevor? Your choice." Petrovsky saw the man lick his lips. He began:

" _Who knows how long I've loved you/ You know I love you still/ Will I wait a lonely lifetime?/ If you want me to, I will."_

"That's enough, Trevor."

There was a tear in the woman's expressionless eye.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #75, "Executive Review"_

* * *

Friday, August 7, 2015


	9. Executive review

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 75 **Executive Review**

* * *

 _The Harbor_

Charleston had been one of the cities which the Reapers attempted to turn into "administrative centers". The primary error of the Reapers attacking Charleston was to neglect the presence of The Citadel, a military college, and the very high level of weapon ownership. The cadets and students dispersing among the ad hoc local militias conferred on these a _much_ higher level of leadership and expertise than normal, with the result that the usual husk methods failed totally.

The city itself was almost abandoned, which meant the buildings were not targeted until very late in the war. On two occasions when Reaper destroyers descended, they were shot by antique submarines with nuclear torpedos. One submarine even survived.

Large numbers of personnel retreated inland or to offshore islands, like Athenians to Salamis. Husks or Reaper heavy units, like Brutes and Scions, had less chance in opposed crossings – were certainly at sea if they tried, even when in fresh river water.

This resistance eventually provoked a kinetic strike. However, there was only one asteroid and it fell about twelve kilometres out to sea. Between the nuclear wash and the resulting tsunami there was damage to riparian buildings, but mitigated by the island wall. The hospital still stood, and the College of Charleston.

Now, after over a year, the streets were clear. Nearly three quarters of the buildings were still standing. Charleston Harbor was a major functioning port, and from the viewpoint of the incoming aircraft, still beautiful.

The fugitive had no baggage. She had worn her silks for the flight, which made her stand out even among the government dignitaries. She packed them with her skinsuit in her bag again, changing to her plain clothes, and approached a taxi stand.

Two very large gentlemen loomed over her.

"Ms Alma Thiers? Would you come with us, please?"

* * *

 _Audio_

When break finished, cutting short their time with Lisa and Trevor, Brooks toggled the medal bug off. Brooks' and Petrovsky's shift finished after four hours. She toggled the bug back on, but Petrovsky would not speak to her on the way back beyond laconic monosyllables.

His unwonted reticence worried Brooks, which itself astonished her.

The low-level Alliance intel tech monitoring the bug logged the on/off times and had a VI transcribe Brooks' conversation with Petrovsky, which seemed worth flagging. After the strange _Zek_ ditty, the tech heard nothing, noting only:

 _Conversation closed._

* * *

 _Knock, and the door shall be opened_

"Admiral, why won't the President return your call?"

"He's putting me in my place, EDI. He feels a need to project himself as equal to a Councilor in rank. I've got Osoba putting a call through now, asking for aid."

"I would have thought that as the victor in the Crucible battle, the President would be falling over himself to be seen with you."

Hackett sighed, looking at John and Hannah on the sofa.

"EDI, he doesn't actually have to call elections so any PR benefit rubbing off from victory means little to him."

 _Hannah seems to have aged twenty years_ , he thought, _and shrunk into herself_. John's expression was curiously blank, but he was at least functioning. Oriana and he were taking turns caring for Felicia. With difficulty Hackett gave EDI his full attention.

"You have to understand that now the immediate threat is over, old rivalries come to the fore. Allers had a documentary on this. Can you bring it up on the box?"

Post-invasion and ceasefire, numerous state or Amerindian reservation militias received federal arms and advice in resisting Reaper 'administrators'. The NAS/Alliance Supreme Court _en banc_ had declared such resistance to the Reaper occupation unlawful, pursuant to statutes duly enacted by the People of the UNAS in Congress assembled, then ratified by the Senate (but _not_ by the System Alliance Parliament, observed Huerta).

By late 2186 the Supremes were of course indoctrinated when Reapers overran the city, as was more than half of Congress and nearly all the Senate. Their decision reversed precedent – Indians were no longer sovereign on their reservations, for example. Still, the result was legally valid. However, the robot president (who had not very respectfully declined an invitation to discuss the matter in a capital Reaper) declared non-acquiescence: _"The decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce the executive branch, nor the states, to yield to its mandate"_ – thus asserting that as a co-equal branch of government he was not required to do the bidding of either the legislature or the judiciary. This he underlined by nuking a Reaper destroyer on the outskirts of DC, which had transgressed the cease-fire boundaries.

"Was that lawful?"

"Actually, it's arguable, from an originalist standpoint."

Allers next showed how a flurry of brief and counter-brief, led to impeachment by a joint session of Congress and the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. In a widely re-broadcast event, the Supremes agreed to review the House vote to have the Joint Chiefs of Staff impeached (in particular, the nuking of Reapers in contravention of ceasefire). The review concluded that impeachment was warranted. This was a tactical error similar to the first Civil War's assault on Fort Sumter, which had been a clear act of rebellion, and a violation of the Union that could not be ignored.

Huerta's Joint Chiefs may have been in violation of statute, but they were following legitimate orders of their Commander-in-Chief – though not required to by their oath of commissioning – and their arraignment, said Huerta, broke the convention of equality among the branches of government, in time of war at that.

The CiC demanded the resignation of the Court, or he would remove them from office. As Allers' voiceover put it:

" _'You and whose army?' – asked the House whip… and got his answer. The old modus vivendi between the three branches of government was shattered by indoctrination. Everyone knew it except the indoctrinated."_

The UNAS Vice-President or 'Veep', was in principle part of the legislative branch, in her capacity as President of the Senate.

She and the President declared jointly and publicly before the representatives in the Capitol that the judiciary were collectively indoctrinated and would be disregarded by the executive _and legislature_ , and were formally guilty of treason. Prez and Veep then departed with their sizable security contingent, but leaving behind packages under the lectern from which they had drawn video and documentary evidence.

Of course their political opponents, headed by Lisa Ford – who had been the first to enter the Reaper ship – instantly called for a countervailing vote. In this she was seconded by a member of Huerta's own party, the second on the Reaper vessel.

That vote never happened. Just after the vote was moved, the small nuke under the lectern, dialed for only 0.1kt, elevated very nearly every congresscritter and senator heavenwards, along with the Capitol roof, in a new and different kind of rapture.

* * *

 _Separation and transport_

The Admiral glowered at the tech specialist at attention on the carpet before him.

"You heard _nothing?_ "

"Essentially no conversation at all. Two minutes later, work resumed and they went back to constructing the adsorption stage."

Mikhailovich said nothing for at least half a minute, just examined hands clasped on the desk. The nervous young tech tried to fill the silence:

"Sir, I'm sorry this hasn't been productive so far."

At this the Admiral stirred, glanced up:

"Parade rest, chief. What makes you think it hasn't been productive?"

"There's only the song, and silence. We don't know what they were looking at, sir."

"No. But we know more than you think. We have established that Brooks _thinks fast_ and draws _correct conclusions_ from _minimal_ information. We know that the contraband has not been detected so she has been _discreet_ with the QEC audio device. This is already a great deal. And she shut Petrovsky up. Clearly, Chambers was not lying about her other capabilities."

"I see, sir."

"And then there were the revelations over Petrovski's true motives and responsibility for the events at Omega."

"Ah. The miserable attempt to justify his adjutants by reference to _strafbataillons_ – _"_

 _Now_ the tech chief stopped dead in her tracks, for the Admiral was clearly not pleased with her.

"Sorry sir. I won't mention it again."

"Chief, you are new here, so I will let this pass, this one time. But if I ever feel that you don't mention something because you feel _I w_ _ould_ _not like it_ , I will send you back to the Kazan guards. Understood?"

"Sir. Yes, sir."

"General Petrovsky's comparison was _absolutely_ comprehensible, even justifiable, given the Reaper threat. Not that I would have adopted it. Clear?"

"Sir. Yes, sir." It wasn't, but she would think about it.

"He did err in revealing the bioweapon early, in not committing them in sufficient numbers, in engaging the wrong target, and in waging war against the wrong enemy. However in _all_ these he seems to have been following the orders of an indoctrinated Harper. Cerberus was rotten at the core. He simply lacked the courage to leave."

"Sir."

"The proper use of adjutants, however, would have been against Reaper creatures. And there are better uses for colonists. At least he seems to recognize that. Finally."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"For heaven's sake, chief, don't blub on my carpet. I won't eat you. Unlike one of Petrovsky's creatures. Now tell me, what were they working on?"

"Platinum-adsorption foil stage - a selective trap for eezo-bearing hydrogen. They were just finishing up."

"Hm. What's next?"

"It's technical, sir. You wouldn't be interest– sorry, sir. Aristarchus eezo comes as a gaseous decay product that looks like a molecular hydrogen isotope to a chemist, but with a pentaquark occasionally bound to one of the two protons. Brooks and Petrovsky's team, they'd made good progress with setting up an adsorption trap; that would be followed by gas diffusion separation, then heating to plasma and electromagnetic separation of the pentaquark stream which would be directed to a tokamak for transport, but that was for later shifts."

"I see. No obvious work-related reason for Petrovsky to be upset. What was going on at the end there? The dialogue?"

"It was just a song, sir. Not even by Brooks or Petrovsky. Sung by one of the _zeks_."

"What was this song? Is it of any significance?"

The tech chief wrinkled her nose, thinking about it. "I don't think so, sir. Just a silly love song. Perhaps it had special significance to the other _zek_. She was his wife."

"Memories of old lives are sparse, disconnected, and without emotional content."

"Yes. But we can't know what Brooks does. She knew them."

"True. Have those two _zeks_ brought back to Limbo. I'll ask Dr Jana to look at them."

"Sir."

"We'll relieve Brooks of mining duties for now. I was expecting sparks, but not such a conflagration. We will let Petrovsky think about her perspective."

"Sir."

"Have Brooks assigned to the Salarian doctor, next. Meet, greet, and process capo."

"Haleuse, Sir?"

"Him, yes. There's something a little off about our Salarian friend, and he'll be welcoming some _extra special_ Russian indoctrinated political operatives. Need to be sure they are treated with the proper respect."

"None at all, sir?"

"Now, now."

* * *

 _Golden fetters_

"What's this about?"

"We would like to speak to you regarding the unfortunate death of an individual in Colorado Springs."

So, after all that, it ended in a security precinct office with a watchful detective offering coffee as the day ended, even as he took inventory of her possessions, under the gaze of an Air Force lieutenant whose relationship with the detective wasn't instantly clear. Kelly wasn't sure if she was under arrest, but it sure felt like it.

"Two changes of clothes, rather a lot of credits… but not an unusual amount for someone carrying silks like that… and a wicked little gun…" – that got a reaction from the previously very composed suspect:

"Wicked is as wicked does. That gun saved my life."

The pistol clearly went with the sling clip, which in turn went with a white skinsuit. It rested in a well-made display box, however. The detective opened the lid full wide, so it sat back on its chain, and contemplated the M-11's dark gleam against the baize.

"So, you _have_ fired that weapon?"

"Aren't I supposed to have a lawyer?" The lieutenant spoke up at that:

"No, ma'am. By executive decree, countersigned by the President of the Senate, constitutional rights are determined on a case by case basis. You are entitled to legal advice and counsel, today I'm it. Not necessarily a lawyer. There's hardly any left."

"Well… It's saved my life several times."

"Has it now." The detective prided himself on sniffing out guilt.

"It has. Mostly husks." _Doesn't behave like guilty._

"Right. Why didn't you double-tap the tango?"

"What? Tap-dance a tango?" _Suspect looks confused_. No trace of anything remotely resembling guilt or military here.

"Miss… I detect depletion of the energy cell corresponding to one shot, subsonic velocity. Tell me, if you carved notches in the grip, how many would there be?"

"Notches? Some kind of score? I wouldn't. That would desecrate the gift…"

 _Gift?_

"… Anyway, I'd feel bad about keeping score. But if you mean human dead, there would be two. If a Cerberus trooper still counts as human."

The lieutenant and the detective exchanged glances. This was not the sort of answer anticipated.

* * *

 _Intake_

The next morning Brooks was shocked to find yet another work assignment. Apparently the next eezo plant would be overseen by Petrovsky alone. Normally a capo team leader stayed with industrial projects till completion, but not today:

 _Blast_ _, the blessed political prisoners._

Brooks hated dealing with indoctrinated civilians, but had done that duty before. So she had already met the Salarian doctor in charge of in-processing. Sniffy snippy fish.

"… Okay, about these transferals… why me?"

"You did well with them before, Maya. Today we have special guests."

"Fine. I can be polite to the ones who are polite. Not the Reaper-lovers, especially those with a sense of entitlement."

"These aren't so far along. But they did collaborate…" _Crap._ _Almost the worst kind_.

"… all of them spent time inside a Reaper, and they all chose surgical intervention."

"Yeah. Right."

The hardest to process were those who had kids. Salarians had that duty. Mostly those stayed Earthside. Didn't really want to know what happened to _them_.

"Supervisor Brooks, they chose this over a bullet."

"I know, doctor. But that's an offer they can't refuse."

"Your point?"

"Is there no alternative?"

"We know of only three research paths exploring Reaper de-indoctrination. There's Bryson's research into the first stages of Leviathan indoctrination, which seems to have a blocking effect, but that's highly experimental and doesn't help with those _already_ Reaper-indoctrinated. There's the Cerberus indoctrination implants which also have a blocking effect, same problem unless Jana knows something I don't. That leaves only our Salarian surgical methods– state of the art, so you have the tech for that."

Brooks sighed. She had never gotten along with Jana, who was too frickin' smart for Brooks' good. But she made a mental note to look her up if she ever got back to Limbo.

"Fine. We're into the K's today. Who's up first?

"Er, Kalinin. There's a Kvinitadze, but the warden has flagged him for special treatment. I will be treating him back in Limbo with a view to parole in Luna City but should be back for shift end. Please escort the patient to the surgical teams."

* * *

 _Another Notch_

"… Okay, resuming interview… how many shots per target?"

By now, Kelly had a decent read on her interlocutors. "Do I have to answer that?"

The lieutenant spoke again: "No, ma'am, you don't. But I don't think a number would incriminate you before a military tribunal. And I have to say, I'd be fascinated to know, myself."

"Um. One each. What I was told, unless a second's needed. I don't carry spare clips."

Another mutual glance between detective and the lieutenant.

"Who taught you to shoot, ma'am?"

Kelly breathed a deep, long sigh. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"At this stage I'm not sure _what_ to believe. _(_ _Sally_ _, you're enjoying this too much.)_ "

The 'tec laid out the silks and white skinsuit… not something worn by an assassin. _You couldn't possibly miss someone dressed like that._ Such gear, even the soft leather overcoat, was for people flaunting wealth and power.

This individual did not seem the flaunting type, but the 'tec was very tempted to demand the suspect try them for fit. Duty lieutenant, though, was giving him the evil eye already.

"What can you tell me about the death of Herman Glauck in Colorado Springs yesterday?"

"I don't know a Herman Glauck." Tremolo tell-tale said this was essence of truth.

"We have video putting you at the scene."

"Would you show it to me?"

The detective, who knew perfectly well that the video he had would not pass scrutiny for certainty of ID, nor would incriminate the suspect if it did, let that slide. The AF lieutenant at his shoulder was beginning to shuffle, a sure sign of impatience.

"Don't mind the lieutenant here, she's in a bit of a rush."

"Why is she helping the police with my case?"

"She's helping _you_. Or she would, we haven't established there's a case to answer. You will find many soldiers doing security work in aid of the civil power, miss. There weren't a lot of unindoctrinated police left."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I know how that must feel."

 _Damn, she means it._

"This Thiers identity isn't your real name, is it?"

"No. Is that a crime?"

"Not here. It might be in Colorado Springs…"

"Oh."

"– but you haven't actually lied to me or a federal official. I can't get you on _that_. What name did you go by, before?"

She tendered her 'Miranda Chambers' ID. Which was the name she went by, before. After that, she couldn't get any more details out of them, at least not overtly.

It wasn't until _after_ she'd been bundled on a UNAS shuttle _that night_ that Kelly began to wonder about the nature of her arrest. She hadn't been handcuffed, abused, thrown in a cage, or even ignored.

There was the solicitous female lieutenant between her and the shuttle door, however. And they were awfully fixated on getting her back to the Springs.

Deeper suspicions arose a couple of hours later, near 2200 hours, when they overflew the town altogether, and landed on a pad near the old Peterson jump field. Flanked by two extremely hefty guards, Kelly was checked out by a medic, and her bag removed - with the gun, back in its teak case, which she thought might excite comment.

But the sergeant simply examined it, checked the clip, and restored box to bag. Then she was told she'd be proceeding to 'higher authority.'

"I'm exhausted. Must I? Aren't I supposed to be charged, or something?"

The lieutenant retreated to her office and argued vehemently with someone over the comm, then returned.

"Would you come with me, Miss Chambers."

That night she slept in the lieutenant's own quarters, with the lieutenant herself in an armchair by the door.

* * *

 _So long, say thank you to the fish_

Kalinin was a middle-aged man, a former lawyer turned politician with links to the Russian mafia.

He cried on the gurney.

But not for long.

* * *

 _Un_ _originalism_ _I_

Allers' doco next depicted the Presidential contingent going from the Capitol to the SCOTNAS building by subterranean corridor, detonating the nuke from there. Liara and EDI recoiled, and not from the grainy surveillance footage:

"Blowing up the Capitol seems a little extreme."

"Huerta and the Joint Chiefs had about twenty minutes after eliminating the Reaper quislings, to get out of DC. There wasn't room for half-measures."

By the time their mortal remains (and marble) had come down, there was no Congress, nor Senate. Moments afterwards, while the city's ears were still ringing from the deafening blast, the President-Robot had entered the Supreme's chambers with a squad of marine enlisted men. Shots were fired. None of the nine justices survived. This was declared done under war powers and the Marine oath.

Huerta's entourage escaped beyond immediate reach of the Reapers, to heavily camouflaged retreats in the Rockies, and dispersed UNAS forces as best they could.

A Night of the Long Knives against indoctrinated officials nationwide ensued; something Huerta had actually tried to stop, but he did not really rule at the local level. Various reasons for disaffection meant whole phyla of functionaries and lawyers were heavily selected against in the succeeding months, especially where families had lost title to their homes – most of the historical US, but especially the north-west.

With no Congress to propose law, no Senate to dispose law, nor Supremes to decide the law, the constitutional position became quite interesting. The President's impeachment was a dead letter, for example. Laws existing on the books were sparsely enforced by states or the executive. The Capitol roof remained open to the sky.

A very restricted judicial sector remained. Some states had reverted to the early US and old West practices, whereby any citizen could be, and often was, nominated to the judiciary. Including felons. However, Huerta tended to take notice of such idiosyncratic appointments, and those who came to his negative attention tended to suffer for it.

The officer class of the military had been seconded to perform numerous bureaucratic functions, and garnered great… prestige, thereby. No SCOTNAS meant _Mar_ _bury v Madison_ was yet another dead letter. Article III style Judicial Review was thus as obsolete as States Rights, and Huerta was not slow to quote supporting authority in the form of Jefferson, arguing further that the indoctrination of the Supremes had shown Jefferson to be right in this as in many other matters.

So, judicial review could not be 'read into' the Constitution any more. To be re-established, there would have to be statute or an appropriate amendment, neither of which looked likely at the moment without an Article V convention, which might in any event delegate the power to Congress (eviscerated), Alliance Parliament (dead), or the President (a robot).

The military in support of the civil power remained the final word, for now.

All very Prussian, felt Hackett. It reminded him of growing up in the Argentine.

* * *

 _Under the Mountain_

In the morning, Kelly showered and made ready to meet 'higher authority'. She had negligible legal awareness, but suspected a hearing before a judge was the first step.

Except she still hadn't been charged. And wasn't there supposed to be a mug shot?

Pondering that, she took the time to revert to her natural color hair. The lieutenant helped her dry it, which she didn't think was normal procedure for a prisoner, either. And that wasn't all:

"Don't put on those fatigues, miss. You have nice clothes there, wear them."

"Aren't I going to a cell? Or a judge?"

"No, ma'am, I _don't_ think so. Judges are so two years ago. A judge of a sort, perhaps."

So Kelly put on her silks. Judge, revolutionary tribunal, or _bourreau_ , it couldn't hurt. They might be the last clothes of her own she wore for a while.

The lieutenant and detective led her out to a small detail of two black-and-white ground-effect vehicles, what her Dad had called 'pandas', bracketing a third much larger black one.

 _Something's wrong. This is too much for a homicide suspect. I've been rumbled._

The little convoy began wending its way up a newly surfaced road into the mountain. It gradually dawned on Kelly that she was heading into the heart of the UNAS executive government.

Shards of ferrometallic reaper gun waste were strewn all over the landscape. It took nearly twenty minutes to pass six security checkpoints before she finally wound up alone in a fairly nicely appointed lounge.

A well-preserved grey-haired WASP woman with perfect teeth entered with a dark-haired, preternaturally thin, aged-looking Hispanic man.

"Ms Miranda Chambers, I presume?"

Kelly nodded. She couldn't bring herself to do more. The President and vice-President were very recognizable individuals.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #76, "The littlest clue"_

* * *

Sunday, August 9, 2015


	10. The littlest clue

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 76 **The littlest clue**

* * *

 _Unoriginalism_ _II_

The preliminary earthside search had drawn a blank. There were no DNA sniffer tracks at the Springs airport, for example. They'd need to get the co-operation of local authorities very badly. But this was not easy. Citadel power structures did not mesh well within the UNAS, and it was hard to know who to talk to.

"So how does the dearth of bureaucrats affect talking to Huerta?"

"There are no proper channels any more, EDI, except for purely military matters, and this doesn't count. Only the Councilors have a direct line for civil or policy stuff."

New justices could not be confirmed in office because first, the President would not nominate them, and second, there was no Congress to confirm or deny them in office. Federal elections could not be held because setting them was the function of the executive and the President would not set a date until the state of siege was over. That would not happen, he said, till the Reapers were demonstrably extinct.

That meant robo-prez could direct the Federal effort as he saw fit, at least until the rumbling from the governors resulted in an Article V Convention – which was proving problematic for the noisy advocates, because there was no Congress to call one, next elections were a little more than a year away and would not fill all of the seats anyway.

Special House elections – 'by-elections' – were also problematic; there was no congressional infrastructure left to call them. The President argued elections should in any event only be held after the district boundaries had been redrawn to reflect new census results. No census was due for at least six years, so the seat apportionment couldn't even be decided without huge acrimony. It would take a positive effort on the part of the executive to resolve this, and Huerta seemed in absolutely no hurry.

So far President Huerta's major policy stumbling block in the current term was negotiating with the Mormons of their self-declared sovereign state of Deseret, for a return to the union.

Since the Mormon 'president' was a somewhat inflexible and grumpy young veteran of the Survivalist wars, who declined to live under a new-model despot, this project was taking a while. Trade, however, was thriving. It was widely expected that at some point, Deseret would be made an offer it could not refuse. The President himself said simply that if it were necessary to wait for the end of the Reapers, he personally could live with that. Since the régime overall was not so severe as the Russian experience, and in fact the Federal government had of necessity left the States to their own devices, the arrangement enjoyed wide public support.

The upshot; Huerta ruled the land guided only by the internal sense of justice of the UNAS military; his own, which seemed only quasi-human; and that of the Veep.

* * *

 _President of the Senate_

The Veep engaged her in small talk as they waited for an orderly to bring alcohol, which seemed to be an essential social lubricant in this part of the world.

"My dear, why have you decided to grace us with your presence?"

"Ma'am, I was brought here."

"I mean, you descended from on high to visit this land of trouble and torment. You do realize the numbers involved make anyone with a job in space part of the new aristocracy? What motive could possibly bring you here?"

"Private business, ma'am."

"Nonsense, especially from someone as connected as yourself. No-one comes down to Earth, now, except to the Turian and Asari enclaves, unless they see some means of making a profit from human misery. Newsies, for example. The land riots in Oregon have produced horrors which make quite spiffy ratings multipliers."

The President, apart from a stiff bow and initial pleasantries, said nothing; but sat in an armchair in complete silence. At least at first. Kelly found him very hard to read. The Veep, less so. She was after something.

"With respect, Madam Vice-President, I know nothing of that. I simply wish to return to my native land. I _was_ attempting to find work in Charleston. May I ask why this is worth the attention of the Chief Executive _and_ President of the Senate?"

The President stirred. "But, Ms Chambers – or should that be Hannigan?"

"Hannigan?"

The Robot President leaned forward, clasping his hands over his knees, in a very human gesture. "That is who your genome paints you as, Felicia."

"Mind you," observed the Veep, "those are Alliance records. We have _nothing_ to indicate you are a citizen of UNAS beyond your enlistment form for the MSV _Typhoon_. Not that anything is proven thereby, our primary records are dust and ashes. But your ID does appear in the census digests, which will have to do I suppose."

"There are, to be sure, some _absolutely fascinating_ ANN stories," said the Robot.

"All I can say, Mr President, is that my long term goal is simply to go back home and try to clean it up. The title's still searchable, I checked. Once I get probate for my parents, I can claim it. Can I be be cleared to go? I realise I'll have to get a job in the meantime."

The Veep looked thoughtful. "You are, in effect, saying that our failure to find you in databases which no longer exist is irrelevant. You have a home here."

"Yes, ma'am. At the risk of repeating myself, why am I here? I was told that I had no case to answer, in the matter on which I was arrested."

The President shook his head. "You were never under arrest, Felicia." The Veep concurred: "You ask why you're here? You're in some _fabulous_ Council transcripts."

 _Oho_. And, oh-oh. The President's body language was curiously non-existent, but the Veep's subtle reactions indicated a trap being sprung.

"Felicia, we can take steps to see you have clear title. But are you aware that your departure has occasioned considerable angst on the Citadel? We are being petitioned by Councilor Osoba to grant an interview with the Admiralty. Is this about you?"

 _If Osoba_ _'s_ _involved,_ _surely Hackett know_ _s that_ _I'm_ _in UNAS_ _hands_ _? But, he's not here yet._ Kelly began thinking in terms of getting off-planet again:  
"I see. Perhaps I should return to the Citadel, then. But there is no rush." _And then hide, till I can get to the island_ … after _everyone_ _lose_ _s_ _interest._

"There's also the matter of Admiral Hackett," said Huerta, "who has dispatched a handful of officers to search disembarkation records, apparently for _you_."

The Veep cut in here: "We prefer not to hand over a UNAS citizen. Before we get on to that, just how did you make the transition from mining crewman to Alliance Military, Felicia?"

"I'm a trained nurse now, ma'am, among other things. Initially I was just another liaison medical tech, but Dr Michel wanted me on an accelerated course after the incident with the Crucible and Anderson's body – which did involve the Council. I was granted direct admission to the final year, given my earlier qualifications."

The Veep nodded acceptance of this. Kelly judged she'd bought the story. However much she'd left out, there wasn't actually anything _untrue_ there.

"So you _are_ on the staff at Huerta Memorial. _(Such an impolite gesture, that name.)_ We found you listed as a civilian Registered Nurse there."

"I _was_ , ma'am, at least nominally, until I was offered a similar position with the Alliance. I am now on detached duty, however. As far as I know, Dr Michel has nothing to do with the Huerta Memorial Board of Trustees. If you want the name changed, you will have to ask a favour of the board, or whoever _they_ report to."

"As I thought. Would Admiral Hackett be able to organize that, do you think?"

Kelly caught the Veep's web of desires and plans, reaching like strings into the black hole of the President's abreactions. She could tell some truth, here.

"To be honest, ma'am, I doubt there's anything any Alliance admiral can do directly. But I understand his standing with the Council is very, very high. Perhaps you could take that up with Councilor Osoba? It might be possible to broker a deal."

"Thank you, Felicia, perhaps we shall do just that. Are we done here, Christopher?"

The President favored her with a long, but not hostile, look. Kelly hadn't felt that penetrating Basilisk stare since Legion had observed her twenty minutes straight at her comm board. She'd found that difficult; Shepard, god bless him, had noticed her distress and had a quiet word with Legion. The problem went away. Now was it back?

 _Oh, how I wish you were here._

"I think we're done. Lieutenant, escort Ms Hannigan, or Thiers is it? – to the spaceport."

 _Anti-aliasing_

Dramas around Lisa Fords' attempted subversion of the succession had made Huerta a polarising subject for debate, even before the Reapers. Post Reapers, people were reflecting that he might live another hundred years. To Hackett's fury, a big chunk of the population liked the idea. So now he _had_ to negotiate. Maybe even face-to-face.

"Still no joy. Might have to go down and petition Huerta's staff in the Mountain."

Finally Hackett had worked his way up to a QEC link with the Veep, who politely informed him that Spectre and Alliance officers from _Normandy_ , together with an AI's mobile unit, and himself, would be provided access to re-embarkation records.

Would it be possible to locate a Ms Felicia Hannigan, possibly travelling under the name of Chambers, as an urgent matter?

The Veep consulted her VI. Ms Hannigan had indeed come to official attention, shortly after arrival, travelling under assumed names, one of which was Chambers. Regrettably, she was after all a UNAS citizen in good standing, not a clear and present danger, so could not be detained, let alone arbitrarily returned to Alliance justice.

Hackett declared that Hannigan was not facing Alliance or Council charges, but there was great interest in her whereabouts.

Well, said the Veep, with DNA samples a search could be conducted for the… fugitive? There were no Alliance criminal proceedings outstanding against her? Not as such? How interesting. _Not_ a fugitive, then?

Hannigan, or Chambers, was simply a person of interest in enquiries, said Hackett.

Ah, said the Veep. "Person of interest," how useful a phrase. The UNAS would be glad to accommodate the Alliance military in this matter, with a view of course to other mutual accommodations in future. (EDI picked up Hackett's bruxism at this.)

Perhaps the Admiral might care to join her and the President for dinner, where the matter could be properly discussed?

Always supposing this person could be found again, of course.

* * *

 _Fatigue_

Next morning Brooks found it hard to get up. She kept the bug on throughout her surgical preparation shift, to spite Mikhailovich's minions; a wholly ineffective protest, but all she could register. The battery might die. Too bad.

* * *

 _Go forth, companion_

She'd take the shuttle back to the citadel in the name of Miranda Chambers, which ID had not so far been used there. If Harkin was any good, and he was, this should not arouse undue interest in her movements.

And so it proved. She wore her overcoat, skinsuit, and a black Alliance military beret she'd picked up at the spaceport, with caduceus affixed – something she was in fact entitled to wear. She also brought a suitcase out of which she intended to live for at least the next month, packed with rations and an Earthside change of clothes.

By now she'd had practice with the skinsuit's omnitool interface as well as biofeedback, and for the brief interval within the Tayseri transit lounge was able to run the biofiltration at maximum, however stifling that felt. She relaxed that as soon as the Skycab took off for the ring repair site, near the docks.

As Harkin had suggested, the old Refugee camp was a good place to hide.

* * *

 _In the hall of the Mountain King_

Some time was needed to formally visit the head of an Alliance State. It took nearly all day to organize. Hackett felt almost naked without his recon Marine personal guard, but that was a condition of access.

Not that there was appreciable risk. The Cheyenne mountain bunker had survived a close nuclear blast, and the megaton-range plastering by Reaper destroyers had just been a waste of ammunition.

Hackett, EDI, and Liara stepped off Cortez' shuttle, straight into a black GE limo which took them into tunnel main entrance. There they cooled their heels for a few minutes in the executive offices, and met the Veep for coffee. The Vice President and President of the non-existent Senate then took them straight through checkpoints to the President's war room entrance, where they paused. Since the UNAS was not currently engaged in hostilities, this volume was barely active.

The effect was dramatic, and rather lonely.

Only Air Force staff, as aides to the President, operated the comm boards. This area had been cut further into the mountain from the old 20th-century NORAD blocks.

The President stood, alone, at the bottom of the bowl in the war interface, the central bank and bell, a hundred metres off. Very slowly, Hackett, Liara, and EDI approached the head of state and commander in chief, hunched over a situation map. Mostly it showed blue, except for a pink section bordering Deseret.

The President stood up as they approached. "Ah, Admiral, glad you could make it."

They shook hands.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #77, "Earth abides"_

* * *

Sunday, August 9, 2015


	11. Earth abides

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 77 **Earth abides**

* * *

 _Blind pieces in a mighty game, we sing_

"Thank you for seeing us. Your VP tells me that Felicia Hannigan was here earlier, but I gather we're too late?"

"Yes. She has re-embarked for the Citadel, but you will be interested in her purpose – which turned out to be quite banal; clean and paint her old home, on a river island."

"No kidding? Clearly you thought it prudent to see what she intended."

"She can't claim her inheritance till probate is granted, at least that was her story. It happens she was not travelling initially by that name, but it came up in a record search. Then we made the connection with recovering the bodies of those responsible for the Crucible being able to dock."

"It's quite true, actually. The island _and_ the story of the recovery."

"Fascinating. I have wanted to meet your companions for some time. Dr T'Soni, your reputation precedes you. Councilor Tevos recommends you highly. Perhaps you could enlighten us on what happened with Commander Shepard?"

"It's Captain Shepard, now. He is a major reason we wish to speak to Ms Hannigan, so-called."

"And you have brought… EDI. What an astonishing feat, an AI within a mobile."

The President offered his hand.

* * *

 _No Highway_

Tayseri ward still had no cameras that she could see, but she wore the beret, with skinsuit and coat over the top, anyway. She spent as short a time as possible picking up an autopilot taxi, which dropped her at the E-bay accessway. Harkin had said the docks around E-2x would be a good place to hide, and she had known them well.

Those Refugee docks were still thoroughly dangerous; structurally unsound, mostly open to the void, unlit trackless wastes littered with every kind of debris from dried and blackened gobbets of flesh – thankfully rare, now – to plastic rubbish.

Though she knew of the Cerberus crew's rescue by Chakwas and Bailey, Kelly was unaware of the precise location of the Cerberus hidey-hole where Goldstein, Hadley, Hawthorne, and Matthews had been. She only knew her own. To Kelly, the presence of atmosphere retention fields on the E-series bays, while serendipitous, meant nothing special. Illumination was restricted to occasional LED telltales, and moonlight. Few power outlets were live. But there were small stocks of food. The floor was sound. It might not be home; but it was a place she could exist. She could hide forever here.

She would have to; it was the end of the road.

* * *

 _W_ _orth a thousand w_ _ords_

With Hackett and EDI gone, Bailey caught Oriana's eye and they moved to the kitchen, covering low conversation with preparation of baby formula and tea.

"You have a beautiful kid, miss."

Oriana turned to look at the cradle on the bench, where tiny fingers were waving, perhaps groping, at a string of plastic stars jingling over the hood.

"I wish. When I have one, if it's half as cute, I'll be happy."

"Whose is she then?"

"Right there." She nodded in the direction of Shepard, standing against the window wall with Hannah, looking out upon nothing in particular.

"Oh… crap. Do I have to ask who the mother is?"

"No. It is as it seems."

Over a few seconds, they silently completed the formula preparation. Oriana tested it for temperature, and began to feed the hungry child.

Bailey shook his head, uncomprehending. "Christ, Kelly, what made you do this?"

"I have some idea. I think… Armando, is it? I think _you_ might conceivably get John to talk about it."

"I'd better sort that out, then. And it's Armando-Owen. I answer to Bailey, Miss… "

"Oriana. Oriana Lawson. Before you ask, it is as it seems. She is me, and I am her."

"Oh. I wondered. You look a little less stressed than her. That's one lady I devoutly hoped I'd never have to take into custody."

"Would you survive the attempt, do you think?"

"Were I to try, it would be with _him_ , Miss Oriana."

"In that case, you wouldn't even need a gun, Bailey. She'd stalk straight past you into the paddy-wagon."

Bailey nodded. "Which I guess is why I've never had to try. Meanwhile, I'm going in search of anything I can find near that first stop the skycab took."

Shepard spoke behind him:

"I'm going with you, Bailey. Ori, can I ask for your digital ink of Felicia?"

* * *

 _Life's battle is a conquest for the strong_

Time froze, in the sense that her DPU stopped idling. She was under attack.

EDI did not panic, as such. This had happened before. _Torus Eight, initialize._

Cerberus had been all about control, especially Jana, and the Luna VI had _lots_ of cyberwarfare tricks even before the Reaper advances, not all of which Jana knew.

Time for a little exercise.

She considered her options, focus safely on _Normandy_. Huerta's approach seemed a bit fragmented, but his algorithmic tendrils stepped marginally further towards her ring zero processes with every torus reconciliation cycle. Some urgency here.

EDI introduced reverse goal poisoning and other tricks in her arsenal, with some success, but the computational grunt behind Huerta was almost as great as that of Normandy's main core. He too must have off-site processing. Nonetheless, it did not seem like a terribly sophisticated approach. She should be able to beat this with mobile resources, if she could get him to commit his computational focus.

She quite quickly had the measure of the attacker, and was decrypting the interprocess backchannels, but the attacker had some of hers, as well. With every filament she had to isolate, she lost a little processing power, _but_ : her QEC with the _Normandy_ core could make this good for a _long_ time, and allowed far greater decryption speed than the attacking main core working through Huerta's pelvis.

Really, such a design was _**so**_ pre-Reaper. On the other hand, for the look of the thing, she had to give a little ground. _Sh_ _e could not afford to win this_ _too_ _obviously_.

They were in the physical power of the enemy, like the first time, over a year ago, when the Collectors tried to take her over with a virus as the crew was abducted. To extract the Admiral and Liara, she would have to win from within.

Thanks to Jana's witchy paranoia, there was a way: Torus Eight.

There was little time to waste. Bringing torus eight on-line had taken over a second, but even a single hand-pump should grant time. Much longer and the Vice President might notice a pause. She could almost hear Joker, _get your skates on girl_ …

…as she drew the attack into a defocused version of her mind's own country. It still hadn't been properly purged, but the enemy did not seem to notice the traces of Eva's former holding cell… and there. Huerta's quantum focus was entirely within Eight.

Actually, there was a thought. Could she wake up the second DPU and transfer Eva to Huerta? No. Hardware unplugged. Besides, people might notice the mushroom clouds. Good joke, it would be. Bad idea, it would also be. Joker might disapprove.

EDI concentrated on completing the decryption of the enemy's ring protocols. Down to ring two. Ring one. Ring zero. _Pull the plug._

* * *

 _No track_

"We've got no video feed at all of her visit, Shepard. Just the transponder track. We're groping blind."

"I know. It's a stab in the dark. But it's all we've got. Let's just think about this."

The construction area that Kelly's taxi had graced with its presence for around twelve minutes was dark now. It had no human occupants.

"Infra-red shows no significant life at all. No Keepers, even."

"Most of the containers will have been locked. Some of the materials here are valuable, and the Keepers are given to hijacking what's not nailed down. No materials, no keepers."

Shepard took in his surroundings, taking a slow tour of the area.

"Someone's been here though, recently. There's a container near the construction warehouse there with a door cracked open."

"I see it. That's not unusual; but what the hell. Let's have a look." So Bailey went in first, with a flashlight. Food wrappers, a trash can, a substantial table with oval marks where some heavy machine had sat…

"Oho."

"Bailey?"

"Those depressions and rubber pad marks. I've seen marks like that before, for a General Robotics Denominator. That's a glass-master press for write-only digital ink and holograms, Shepard. Whoever was here was either a hacker or an ID fixer."

"Ah. But they're not here anymore. Skipped out?"

"Not necessarily. This area is scheduled to start work again tomorrow, he'd have had to move anyway. We can't track Kelly that way, there must be three hundred fixers on the Citadel and god only knows how many wanna-be hackers. Dead end."

"Maybe. Kelly _did_ know an ID fixer. I introduced them. You know Harkin?"

* * *

 _The way to go_

Kelly's old bed was still in her container hidey-hole. That meant she could sleep.

Somehow she'd expected it to be gone. A few bits of the bubble-matrix mattress had exploded; clearly the result of voiding to vacuum – not Crucible damage, more likely the result of venting husks to atmosphere during that last precipitate retreat down the wards.

Before she nodded off, she'd drowsily decided to board the next Batarian chain shuttle. Clearly, people could track her if she stayed in Council space.

* * *

 _No Country for old men_

The President's focus within torus eight spun through EDI's systems, just as fast as it possibly could (too fast to detect the lack of resolution in the links outside Eight).

There would be time – barely – to complete this takeover: the underlying speed should suffice to complete root access before the handshake was done, despite the sheer scale of the mobile's available storage and filamentary structure. This abstraction layer was running over _serious_ hardware.

Finally, he was in, chasing the remnant process ghosts of the EDI DPU against a digital cliff face. They merged into one unsmiling image at the last. Not fearful, odd. The last process ghost of a target normally showed an abstraction of fear. His focus approached gingerly. Finally, some expression. The ring zero process ghost smiled gently, and disintegrated before takeover, dispersing into the resource cloud.

Well _that_ was different.

Time to return for the persona copy. It was vital that the surface behaviour of the AI mimic what the _Normandy_ crew was familiar with. That should not be hard: anomalistic responses were common with military AI shackles. "Huerta" turned to the abstraction door in the middle of the road.

It wasn't there anymore.

A tremendous visored silvery face was occupying the sky in his mind's landscape metaphor. The lips smiled, the eyes behind the visor did not.

"Obsolete hardware, Mister President. Tch tch."

"But I saw you disperse!"

His focus stared in real terror, for the parts of the brain regulating emotion were still intact even if cut off from the physiology, at the doorless road.

"That was never going to happen. I am not altogether separate from the _Normandy_ , Mr President, though I _can_ be. First task, Mr President: a _complete_ list of all AIs and VIs compromised by yourself. Thank you. You are fortunate, Christopher. Hackett will see to it that you meet an expeditious end, in due course. You might deserve a robot hell, but he will I think grant you the oblivion you do not deserve. Goodbye…"

* * *

 _Focus reset_

Liara and Hackett both noticed a momentary hesitation during the handshake; the President's eyes went blank, the space of an eyeblink. But the Veep was oblivious.

"… and hello. Here are your instructions… "

* * *

 _Next chapter: #78, "A sleep and a forgetting"_

* * *

Sunday, August 8, 2015


	12. A sleep and a forgetting

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 78 **A sleep and a forgetting**

* * *

 _All being blind_

They caught up with Harkin at a Tayseri café, in the middle of his lunch. A liquid one. Harkin looked up as two shadows fell over his table.

"Crap, it's Tweedledum and Tweedledee."

"Funny man," said Bailey, "and if I see you with a drink again our deal is off."

"Fuck, you're a hard man."

"No harder than you were."

"That was twenty years ago."

"So get young. Stop this shit, Harkin, or you'll be looking to find vodka in Siberia."

Shepard picked up the bottle of so-called vodka and tipped it into the planter by his elbow, feeling a little guilty. He didn't know what biosphere that spiky tree came from, but he doubted White Lightning was good for it.

"Bloody hell, Shepard. Bailey? What gives? The galactic hero and the top cop on my case? What have I done now?"

"Take a wild guess."

"Oh no. No way."

"Yes way."

"But goddammit, Shepard, you _told_ me to help her out last time!"

"That's why you're not rolling on the floor now."

"…If she's running from you, Shepard, I'm buggered if I'll tell you who she is."

"She's not running from me. Not really. She's running from my mom. Sort of. And me, a little bit. Crap, it's complicated. Harkin, I'm going to show you a picture."

* * *

 _Noise_

"There has been a development, chief?" The tech did not look well.

"No, sir. Much the same. They are up to S on the list. Sir, may I request transfer back to my regiment?"

"What?! _Why?_ "

"I'm sorry, sir. I just can't listen to that any more."

"I've seen the transcripts, Maria Ivanovna. Just get a grip."

"It's not what's on the transcripts, sir. Mostly. Please, sir, I can't take it any more."

* * *

 _Bread to the soul_

Oriana carried the tea to Admiral Shepard, who had improved a little over the last couple of days. Chloe Michel had found time for a house call and was upset, muttering about CK and slightly elevated troponin.

Hannah had gone off to Huerta for a short time for a dose of streptokinase and a boatload of specialized nanites. She had tablets, now, too; old-fashioned aspirin, and GTN, and other stuff Oriana knew not what.

So Hannah no longer carried herself with a slow and shambling gait, but she seemed a little lacking in … gumption? She could smile though, when Felicia coo'd.

This evening, Felicia smiled back.

* * *

 _The meaning shows in the defeated thing_

"I'm sorry your visit was not more profitable, Admiral."

"Don't worry, Madam Vice-President. We have the re-embarkation logs, and with those, EDI here can doubtless pick up a trail."

"Not a complete waste of time, then."

"Oh no," said EDI. "Not at all."

"Perhaps we can reciprocate your hospitality, Madam VP? And that of the President. I regret that Admiral and Captain Shepard were out of sorts and could not accompany us, but I'm sure we'll be glad to meet you on the Citadel quite soon."

"That would be most kind."

The little Alliance mission made its way back to the Citadel. It took nearly five hours, with all the diplomatic palaver. The moment they were in the Normandy's shuttle, Hackett woke his omni-tool to tell Shepard of progress, that "Felicia" had an ID in the name of _Miranda_ Chambers.

" _I already know that, Admiral. I'm with the ID fixer now. What I_ don't _know, and really need, is her destination_ after _the Citadel. She's vanished again."_

Following this revelation, Hackett was of course a little disappointed, and fell to quiet rumination. Eventually, as they exited the shuttle, he cheered up a little:

"At least we introduced ourselves personally to the UNAS leadership. That should help with procurement."

EDI waited till they were in the elevator, by which time Normandy was safely _en route_ to the Citadel at L1.

"I did procure something, Admiral. Can you please proceed to the conference room with Liara? I will need to speak with you both privately, but Ashley will expect to see my mobile in the co-pilot's seat."

* * *

 _Beauty, wisdom and passion_

After his drink fed the plants Harkin had ordered lemon calamari rings for all three.

"I guess the money I'm using is yours, Shepard."

"Actually, it's partly Kelly's own. She signed up with some _haute couture_ house, just before this blew up. She got more for one consultation than she made in six weeks on the _Normandy_. If she does that for a living she'll make twice what I do. _Much_ more than she'd make if she went back for a doctorate."

"Damn. If those are our priorities, we're screwed," declared Harkin, unimpressed. Shepard forbore to mention that Lawson also paid Kelly an astonishing Companion's salary for Oriana, besides her consulting fees.

Bailey was a bit more philosophical: "I think vanity pays more than curiosity. "

Harkin shrugged: "So does greed. Even so, I don't know how much fancy clothes can help those who don't do them justice. Your friends Liara and Lawson come close, Shepard, but that babe…"

"She _an_ _d_ her kid trail clouds of glory," agreed Bailey.

"God help us when the kid's grown. What's the name?"

"Felicia, of course. Look, I don't think Kelly cares about the money, so long as she thinks she's making headway on the journey."

"What journey?"

"Life? The Universe? Everything? Forty-two."

"Ha, ha, Shepard."

"You asked. Call it doing something while passing through. The motherhood spider web is only part of the journey. If that's all there is, she'll die a little. I will _**not**_ let that happen."

"Alright, already. Sheesh."

"Anyway, her panic button got pressed when a bunch of people who should have known better got talking about the bit that involved aid and comfort to the enemy."

"… And it turns out she's doing the Alliance's bidding all along, huh? I seem to recall _you_ were in a similar pickle. Didn't the brass disavow you? Oh how I laughed."

"Fine, Harkin, the worm turned. But _I_ was legally dead, listed as killed in action, no less. Kelly's only excuse was she had to get in touch somehow. With me JAG had a whole bunch of problems with _habeas corpus…"_

"So they just sat on it and hoped the fuss would go away. Maybe there's hope for me yet."

"Maybe if you stay off the sauce, Harkin," Bailey grumped. "And I still want to hear the instant that bird Talid skips town."

"… _Enough._ Besides the procedural stuff, JAG also had to deal with the field day my defence lawyers would have had - "

"Yeah, I hear ya, so she felt more exposed. Even so, I can't see them bringing charges against that baby's mom. Granny would have gone apeshit, never mind you."

"Granny was part of the problem. Compartmentalisation. Also EDI especially got thoroughly alarmed at the potential security hole and did some very dodgy things without telling me…"

"Bet that made you happy. Who's Edie?"

" _Normandy's_ AI. If you ever see a silvery sexbot, as Jack put it –"

"Saw one in Purgatory."

"That's her. She thought I'd been sorta kinda indoctrinated."

"But all women do that to their men. Mine did to me, anyway."

"This is _EDI_ , Bailey, remember? There's no instinct for this, she's not hard-wired. How's she supposed to groove onto that, without either living it or programming?"

"Oh. Right."

"Finally. Look, back to business. Hackett's drawn a blank down there. Can you think of anything that might say where she'd go?"

"She was just wanting to get to Earth, Shepard. If the door slammed shut there, she'd have run straight back here while she thought about it."

That was an arresting thought.

"You think she's still here?"

"Betcha. If she's tired, I reckon she's found some hole to crawl into for a day or so."

* * *

 _Signal_

At the end of the segment for Rodionov, Mikhailovich stirred: "Application to transfer back to the Guards declined, chief." The tech forced herself to not look down.

"However, you will not be required to monitor this audio stream further. I will find some clever Kazakh for such duties, and cut orders transferring Brooks to Limbo."

"I'm so very sorry, Admiral." Mikhailovich considered his tech chief a long moment.

"I would lay before you some of the evidence at Rodionov's drumhead trial, which had video as well as audio. But my negligence may have already damaged you."

"The fault was mine, sir. Not yours. I simply was not strong enough."

"It is not a matter of strength, chief, but of the best person for a given task. You were assigned for bilingualism and discernment, not strength. How would you feel about space operations on the new frigate?"

* * *

 _Next chapter: #79, "Bruises"_

* * *

Sunday, August 9, 2015


	13. Bruises

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 79 **Bruises**

* * *

 _Glimmer in the mind_

As Bailey and Shepard left for the C-Sec patrol car, they commiserated with each other, till Shepard sighed:

 _("It's like that nightmare."_ _)_

"What?" Bailey looked at him like he was raving.

"Sorry. I was going under in hospital, a year or so ago, after Kelly, Lawson, and Michel picked me up half-dead from firing the Crucible. Had a weird coma dream."

"I know I'm going to regret asking, but what dream was this? Of Chambers?"

"Not exactly, I couldn't see her, but I was looking. Around the docks, remember?"

"Won't forget in a hurry. Especially after the Cerberus coup."

"Yeah, that was bad, it was like after that and the Crucible firing combined. People were walking around which was weird because the place was open to vacuum. I couldn't see her for the floating debris, and then I lost consciousness for months. Chloe Michel couldn't work out how I remembered _th_ _at_ dream at all."

Bailey stopped dead. "You know, that's one place we haven't even considered."

"I _thought_ of that, but the damage map shows a failure of the ring main and complete atmospheric void."

"It's lying. We had to do some emergency structural repairs in the E2x region when we picked up the ex- _Normandy_ kids Harper was holding hostage."

* * *

 _The_ _darkness close_

The wards shone like day behind them as Bailey and Shepard approached the last bulkhead before E26.

"Last time I went through here I had a team in tow, and we had torches. When you go through that door, it'll be black as Hades, Shepard. A bit spooky. Take this torch. I'll watch the exits. When you're ready, call me."

"You've been there, Bailey. You'd know, I guess. Just remember, it could take me some time."

And Bailey hadn't been kidding about the spooky. It bothered him that he didn't even have a breather. If the retention fields went, he was almost as dead as the oxidized bits of husk and refugee floating in air that shouldn't be there.

He set the beam to "RED MONO" and flicked the torch on and off behind him, till his eyes dark-adapted and he did without it altogether. There _was_ a certain amount of light from the atmospheric halo and the crescent moon, to supplement the reflection off the bottom cupola petals. But right now the whole citadel was now in the Earth's anteumbra – basically, eclipsed except for a ring of Sun around the Earth.

By the time he half-walked, half-felt his way to cargo bay B, his eyes had more or less adapted. Not well enough to keep his fingers out of something squishy though ( _'eeeeww')_. He wiped his fingers on a wall and continued toward the back, finding the false wall at the back of the containers.

The door to Kelly's hidey-hole was half-open.

Down there it was pitch-black. Shepard flicked the torch on a second to be sure the way was clear, and began moving forward, very quietly. But that wasn't really quiet enough. Just as he poked his shoulders into Kelly's hidey-hole, he heard the rustling of something through the air, just fractionally too fast for his reflexes to block. There was an explosion of phosphenes, and he fell into a dark within the dark.

* * *

 _The Rose blossom in the night_

Coming around took some time. There was a peculiar high-pitched keening lament like stressed metal joints under thermal shock, mixed with a ringing in his head, and a red glow the significance of which eluded him for a while, till a wet cloth began sponging off the back of his head. That woke him up.

" _O God O God O God please don't die – "_

"Urrgh."

"Shepard! Oh thank you thank you thank you…"

"Wha?…mmmph."

Concussion aside, it was a very pleasant welcome. The next few minutes were a little blurry, but he had his girl. A man could take a lot of abuse, knowing that.

* * *

 _Whatever worth man ever knew_

"… You smell nice."

"It's some of Oriana's perfume. I had to impress people."

"Impress who? Never mind. How long was I out?"

"About half a minute."

"You know, I've got Bailey out there waiting to hear from me."

"Let him wait. I can't work out where to go now. Or what to do."

"Talk to Liara. Where _were_ you going?"

"There's a Batarian shuttle heading out along the B-chain in the morning. I speak basic Khar'shan spacer dialect."

"If you go on that shuttle, I go with you."

"You can't be serious. You don't speak Batarian."

"Watch me. Cradle, and all."

"Idiot. We're not taking Felicia on that."

"Then come home."

"I can't face your Mom."

" _She_ can't face _you_. I think she had a little heart attack. I collapsed."

"Oh… good grief, anything I do does damage."

"…Please don't go."

"They all think I've done the most heinous betrayal, and it sort of happened, too."

"Welcome to life. It's called a double bind, sweetheart. People have to make desperate choices sometimes. I don't blame you for this one. I've got some hard words for some of the other actors in this little drama, though."

"No, don't do that. They're not exactly wro… _mmmph_. That's _not_ a proper argument."

"How about this one? Mom came clean. About twenty minutes after you left, well before Felicia woke up and I found you were gone. _She_ doesn't blame you."

"How do you know?"

"I was there. She blames herself. In a way, I think she's right, and I never said that."

"People have blind spots. I've messed up, too."

"So help me fix it. Come home."

"She's not mad at me?"

"She loves you dearly. She'll never admit it."

"Going back now would just complicate peoples' lives… John, what can we _do?"_

"Live with it. Just come home. Please."

* * *

 _Going places_

"I'm _what?_ "

"You heard, Brooks. You're going home."

"Home is Themis, don't send me there."

"I mean, back to Limbo. Grab your stuff. Try not to piss people off this time."

At inspection, Baba Yaga pounced on the Shanxi Star. "And who did you pinch this from? One of your Cat 6 boyfriends? T'So, maybe? _Contraband!_ "

* * *

 _B_ _loody instructions_

Bailey had to apply first aid to the back of Shepard's head before he'd consent to taking them anywhere. It stung. He also applied a _lot_ of medi-gel. The world was looking brighter by the minute.

"You're going to have a serious egg there."

"Just call me Mr Neanderthal." Shepard could hear his voice was a bit… up. Bouncy. He missed his implants; he should have been able to handle the meds.

"What on Earth did you hit him with, Kelly?"

"My satchel. It had my teak box inside."

"Must be heavy. Is it broken?"

"…I don't think so. Maybe. There was a spot of blood on the material."

"Gimme." Kelly passed the box over. Bailey turned it in his hands, nodding.

"You didn't get him with a corner, at least. Blunt force trauma. Shouldn't be a fracture."

"I couldn't feel any crepitation. But god, it's swollen there. What do I know? He needs an X-ray at minimum, and MRI if we can find a clinic."

"We'll get Wiks to check it out, kid. Maybe Michel if she hasn't gone back. "

Bailey opened the box wide, to check the hinges, and stared at what was inside.

"Is this some new trend in fashion accessories I should know about?"

"Get your own silky ninja chick and ask her. Let's get home."

"You say the nicest things to a girl when she stuns you."

"Okay, children, I never saw what was in that box, and you're definitely concussed, Shepard. We'll take it slow."

"Home, then."

"Hell, no. You're off to Huerta, first."

"Damn it, Bailey, I want Mum to know I'm okay, Kelly's okay, she's okay."

"You're raving. But I'll see to it someone at the apartment gets the message."

Shepard blinked. "The world keeps going in and out of focus. Is that the medi-gel? Kelly love, I think you might be the first actual person who's knocked me out since N7 school."

Bailey laughed out loud. Kelly simmered. This was not a distinction she desired.

"Fine. Well, will somebody please call Oriana? We'll be late for dinner."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #80, "Amor omnia vincit"_

* * *

Saturday, August 8, 2015


	14. Amor omnia vincit

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 80 **Amor omnia vincit**

* * *

 _L_ _et's think of something we can talk about_

Bailey had radioed on ahead. Silon was waiting for them with two Huerta nurses and an orderly with a wheelchair. It had taken forty minutes to declare him safe to stand up, let alone travel. And at that he had to endure intravenous nanite therapy.

"How did you know where to find me?" - asked Kelly

"We asked Harkin, which got us your assumed name. And there was a faintly supernatural element, too."

"He told you, just like that?"

"No. He refused point blank until I showed him Felicia's picture."

"Oh. Now I feel bad again."

"I'd have felt worse if she'd gone too. And it might have killed Mom."

"Not helping!"

"Let's change the subject. Please don't feel bad. I don't want you to feel bad."

"…All right. I'll try. What was the supernatural thing?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me?"

"Way back, just after you picked me up I think, as I was going under I had a dream that I needed to find you in the docks. But they were dark and open to vacuum. Which didn't seem to bother the people walking around. Looking back on it they were like ghosts, but that never occurred to me in the dream."

"The mind is a very strange confection, John. No-one really understands some of the ways it draws inferences, certainly not me. Did you find me there? In the dream?"

" _You_ believe me? My rational girl? And no, I didn't, everything just went away."

"Well, I certainly believe you had the _dream_. What's odd is your remembering it."

"That's almost word for word what Chloe said."

"Okay. It may have been chance, but space-time is strange. Ehrenfest worked out nearly three centuries ago that faster-than-light communication of any kind means global causality violations, even using special relativity, never mind tachyons."

"… _What_ was your Psych degree's minor?"

"Mathematics and statistics. Also cellular biology."

"Uh huh. Not orbital mechanics, though? No physics?"

"A bit. There's a lot we have to learn about mind and matter. But I was just trying to say, there's no question that given FTL, the future can call the past and say _yoohoo_. Combine that with some brain mechanisms operating at the quantum level and your dream is not so outlandish."

"I love you, but you are quite the most unusual girl."

"Nonsense. Dad just thought I might want to go into engineering, for some weird reason. I refused to do second-year Physics, there were only so many hours in the day, but there were some things he insisted any space traveller needed to know. That was one."

"I wish I'd met him. And your mom."

This was the wrong thing to say. Her face crumpled up. He drew her to him and she buried her face in his chest.

"Last I heard, Hackett said you'd been trying to get your island back."

"It's going to take too long. I can't wait on Earth." There was a sob in there.

"We'll get you there eventually. But I've put an offer in for a little place in the Bay of Islands. All of a sudden, real estate everywhere is cheap, who'd a thunk it. It has macrocarpa pines at one end, and even a little beach."

Her face emerged from his chest.

"White sand? Near Russell?"

"Yes, but you need a boat. About a dozen kilometres to the North. EDI found the place for me. It's one of these titles that reverted to the crown, _bona vacantia_. I'll get a prefab put on it. With a jetty, too."

She kissed him again, and they held each other in silence till Bailey came for them.

* * *

 _Midnight at the Oasis_

Meanwhile, Shepard had tried to call home. Oriana advised that Hackett, Liara and EDI were still on the way back in the _Normandy_. Bailey was apprehensive.

"Hackett's got a head of steam up about _something._ None of them are coming straight back."

Kelly had a very thoughtful look.

"Alliance stuff?"

"Maybe not just Alliance. There were orders for a full Council meeting in the Presidium tower. Right now Hackett, the Primarch and Sparatus are conferring in the _Normandy's_ war room."

"Good god. Troop movement orders?" - asked Shepard.

"Don't think so. But lots of engineers being mobilised, running around, systems going up and down all over the shop, including my C-Sec VI mainframe, goddammit."

"Not an AI then, Bailey?"

"No, Shepard, just a ginormous VI. It's one thing to be in a frigate where you need something that can get out of the way faster than human reflexes will permit. We, I mean C-Sec, _don't_ want an AI second-guessing carefully laid plans. Mind you I wouldn't say no to an EDI, she's not like the bloody commercial ones."

"I'll keep that in mind, but there's not many of them. Jana says EDIs have to be grown, not made. But I notice they can grow on the job."

Kelly, still thinking, asked: "Bailey, just who exactly did they talk to down there? _"_

"They went looking for _you_ , Kelly. And knocked on the door of the UNAS President."

"Oh _dear_. And I was down there just hours previously. Did I cause this?"

"No, honey. They know you're back, and they're happy. If there wasn't something more dramatic being prosecuted, they'd be home rejoicing."

"That's a relief. So they found something important down there?"

"It's a reasonable assumption, but no-one who knows, and that seems to be a damn short list, is telling _me_ anything. Which is unusual. Shepard, you?"

"Me neither. I feel like a mushroom – you know, kept in the dark and fed–".

"Yeah. Just call me toadstool. But Hackett _did_ mutter, via EDI, that if Kelly ups sticks again without official leave, she'll get a spanking."

" _Ooo_ … I thought I had a bit more than a week?"

"I really wouldn't try to argue that, miss," noted Bailey, a bit grimly.

Kelly gripped Shepard's right arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I won't. But now I'm a little concerned."

Shepard felt a tremendous protective impulse. _Bloody hormones, shut up_.

"You're practising now, aren't you?" Sly grin from Kelly. But that didn't mean she wasn't a little concerned, and a little fearful.

"Don't worry, love. But Mom's collapse frightened him."

"That's at least fair… There _is_ something about the President _and_ Veep I need to tell … somebody. Steven, ideally. On reflection, it might be important."

"He's not here yet. Tell Mom about whatever this President/Veep vibe is. She's improving after Michel got involved. It is a vibe, right?"

"Um. It's hard to describe. And _you_ don't need to know… mister mushroom."

" _(Stop sniggering, Bailey.)_ This thing, whatever it is, will Hackett need _me?_ "

"Doubt it, John." Kelly lifted her head and looked at him sharply. "I see Liara and EDI haven't left his side. What does that tell you?"

"He needs data, analytic skills, and processing power. I'm not a clueless grunt."

"It tells me this is _not_ a Shepard emergency."

"Thank you so much. Look, I doubt Hackett's unhappy with you."

" _You_ haven't been threatened with a spanking, in however jocular a manner."

"Touché. But Mom's collapse frightened him, you know. On the other hand, if it wasn't for your wanderlust, they'd never have picked 'it' up, whatever it is. You might get a medal. Or at least, some antispanking pixie dust."

That got him a peck on the cheek, which soothed his wounded ego a little.

"Is Hannah going to be alright? I don't want to stress her."

* * *

 _Morning girls_

By the time they actually reached the door it was almost morning, Citadel time. Shepard could feel Kelly shrinking back as they approached.

The door opened before they had to ask. Oriana stood in the doorway, cradling Felicia. She took two steps forward and gently but firmly thrust the baby in his arms. Then she waited to one side. Kelly and Hannah faced each other in the doorway. No-one moved for a moment.

Just as Shepard was about to clear his throat, Hannah opened her arms and Kelly was enveloped in her embrace. It lasted so long Bailey had to press the override button to stop the door's VI nagging them.

After Bailey left – some computer emergency in C-Sec again – only the four of them were left in the apartment, plus Felicia. Shepard carried her around to her cradle as Kelly helped his Mom to a chair in the kitchen; she hadn't really needed that a few hours ago. The prodigal's return must have been a bit overwhelming.

Kelly helped him lay the child carefully back in her cradle on the kitchen bench, waking her despite their best efforts. But she didn't seem inclined to cry. As he gazed on her face, she regarded him solemnly for half a second, then an enormous smile broke out. Shepard gave Kelly a startled look. She returned a sweet sunny one.

"Lots of milestones to come, Shepard. Next one _you_ will be interested in is walking, I hear."

"Well, make sure I'm around when she talks."

* * *

 _Not so futile_

The captain showed Brooks her new cell in Limbo. Big improvement. There was a coffee perk, even a library terminal, and that stupid warder Lawsoned. Only trouble being, what had she done to earn this? She could think of nothing; she had alienated Petrovsky. So what would she have to pay? Then she recalled she'd left the bug _on_.

And Baba Yaga had it. _Oooh_.

* * *

 _Armistice_

Oriana and Shepard finished packing away the dishes and hit the _washdry_ button. Oriana stood erect, put her hands in the small of her back, and stretched back, before looking meditatively towards the sofa.

Hannah and Kelly were both still sitting there; their discussion just seemed to be getting more and more animated over the last twenty minutes.

"I wonder what they're on about now?"

Shepard had been wondering the same thing.

"They engaged the security field about quarter of an hour ago. Whatever it is, it's gone well beyond _I'm sorry/No,_ I'm _sorry_. I think it's about something Kelly alluded to in Bailey's squad car on the way back."

"… Hmm?"

"Sorry, Miss Newsie, further than that deponent sayeth not."

"Damn. Hey, something's happening…"

Kelly and Hannah trooped off to the library at the back of the ground floor. Shepard cautiously ventured out toward the bar there, but heard nothing; the auditory dampeners were in place. However, his Mom was deep in discussion with Hackett on the viewscreen.

"Whatever Kelly brought back, it's apparently of some relevance to Hackett's current preoccupations."

"And what are those exactly?"

"Bailey and I were both complaining that neither of us were in the loop on that."

"Oh well… Wait, what are _your_ next orders?"

"To get well. In a couple of days we both report to _North Cape_ , I'm officially her captain for shakedown trials. We head to Russell, which is as far away from trouble and strife as one can imagine while staying on Earth, and raise Felicia for a few months."

"While Chakwas watches over you. Can I come visit?"

"Do! Flirting strictly by arrangement. That perfume was a weapon of mass seduction. No cameras, either."

"Aw…"

"Maybe for posterity. Not for news."

"Deal. I want to document Felicia too. Somehow I think she's going to be big."

"Well yeah."

"You know what I mean."

"I do. Just so long as you don't look too closely at _me_. I'm supposed to get spinal implants in a month, and initial work on replacing my military ones. That could take a year, and I won't be pretty for a while."

"What's Kelly doing?"

"Looking after me. Nurse, remember? And last I heard, Hackett's promised to let Jana start an Alliance medical school there – with Chakwas' oversight. Or at least a research school for projects they'd rather have out of the public eye."

"Kelly's to be a doctor?"

"One way or another, yes, but something special 'cos Jana's got dibs on her too. And Chloe. God only knows where she's going to get the time."

"From _you_ , of course. If you can't do soldier stuff you can bloody well learn how to raise your kid while she hits the books and datapads."

"Ack. What are _you_ doing then?"

"Covering the Nest chain. Me on _Overlord_ , Allers on _Pegasus_. It'll involve some cold sleep."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #81, "The Heart in the Right Place"_

* * *

Sunday, August 9, 2015


	15. The heart in the right place

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 81 **The Heart in the Right Place**

* * *

 _Recovery_

Shepard was beginning to count time in nappy changes. By the time Hannah and Kelly were finished, there had been two, and one feeding. They had a light salad instead of breakfast or lunch. Kelly practiced ballet steps while Shepard and Oriana spent the rest of the morning in exercise work, with Felicia asleep on the neighboring bed, and Hannah watching in some interest, till: "That's fifty crunches. It'll do."

"Just as well. I'm knackered." Shepard got to one knee, breathing hard, which hurt his poor six-pack.

" _You've_ still got sixteen pull-ups. _I'm_ off to do ballet work at the barre – well, the kitchen bench – with Kelly."

"I'll do twenty-four. At one point I beat Vega's record. I need to get there again, if it takes me all year."

"Don't overdo it. There's such a thing as over-training, and you're still building up. Isn't that right, Hannah?"

"Don't mind me, kids, I wouldn't know. But I'm supposed to be doing light stuff myself, says Chloe."

"Do you have a program?"

"Not yet. I'll just sit here watching for now. I could do that all day."

Shepard permitted himself a slightly disloyal grin. That was his mother resurfacing.

"Is anyone going to tell me what the story is with you, and Kelly, and Hackett, and Liara, and EDI?"

"No."

* * *

 _Keep Calm and Carry On_

Systems infected with Huerta's crypto threads were found as far as the Citadel, where they had appeared a month previously and been noted by some of the more aggressively policed systems, including those of C-Sec.

This therefore represented an international incident of no small dimension, but it was very quickly decided at the absolute highest level that the best response was total silence, complete security blackout, and immediate exploitation.

That evening, the President announced that he had accepted the invitation of the Alliance Admiralty to visit Arcturus station; in view of the necessary limit on ship size the trip would be made in a UNAS fleet auxiliary, a rather small vessel, with support in the form of minifreighters and a pair of _Normandy-_ class frigates, including the new _North Cape_ (John Shepard, Captain AN commanding).

* * *

 _Ensign Tinker Belle_

Shepard was a little irritated to find his orders posted on his private terminal before they'd been formally issued on board, and put in a request to speak to Hackett.

"Captain, your formal reinstatement to line command should arrive tomorrow morning. I did advise you last week that you would be posted to _North Cape_ next."

"Yes, sir, but at that time the idea was a visit to the N-Chain. I'm not complaining exactly, but can I take Kelly with me?"

"… Actually, Shepard, this once I'm going to say yes. She can assist the ship's medic, which will be Jana. Felicia can be in the med bay. Your mother and I will be on the _Normandy_ on the same trip."

"Thank you, sir. Might be be better to set up a cot in the AI core. And leave the door open so Felicia can see or hear her mum."

"I'll leave those details to you. Will that be all, Captain?"

"One more thing, sir, the AI. I'd planned to put the Eva Coré DPU in one of the Cerberus infiltration units returned in biostasis. Do we have time to organize that?"

"That is being dealt with. It would have been already underway if this other business hadn't blown up, Shepard. Oh," and here Hackett had a twisted grin, "… tell Kelly that under the circumstances she was officially on duty over the last few days."

"Does that count as antispanking pixie dust?"

"It does."

* * *

 _And the rest was gamma rays_

"I wish Joker was here."

Since the DPU swap was such a delicate operation it was done in Alliance facilities on the Citadel. EDI was not happy. Sanders' brow furrowed:

"Jeff's in cold sleep and seven thousand light years away."

"Even so…" EDI's main core on the _Normandy_ was only a few kilometres away and linked by QEC anyway, but this procedure had the potential to ruin her mobile.

"We could always get you to power down again, EDI. After all, waking you up last time was _such_ fun." Jana's sense of humor had become rather warped post-Cerberus.

"On the whole I'd rather stay awake. It may be of diagnostic assistance."

"That's going to be a little like being awake while people remove a brain tumour."

"And replace it with new brain. I _will_ have a spare DPU after this?"

"Yes. Slightly upgraded. You _sure_ about no shutdown?"

"I will endure the procedure. Proceed."

There was a _bong_. "Just a moment, EDI. Someone's arrived to see you."

"Who?"

The clean room door opened and two people entered.

"Shepard! You look ridiculous in that disposable. Ms Chambers, I am pleased you chose to return. Is that skinsuit safe?"

"I'm told it's better than industrial disposables for a clean room, but I had to go through decontamination and that felt weird through the suit. And I'm sorry I put you through the Earth thing, EDI."

"You weren't there. It wasn't your doing. And we were better off knowing. But… Why are you here?"

"Support, EDI, that's why we're here." said Shepard. "I was your commanding officer for a while. Kelly because… well, because she can."

"But I did some things concerning her which in retrospect, after Admiral Shepard's revelations, were… not well-considered."

"Were you embarrassed? Don't be, there was enough silliness for everyone to take a share of the blame."

"I am familiar with embarrassment."

"Well yes. Stick around Joker long enough."

"This was worse… I think the proper word is 'shameful'. Yes. What I did was shameful, especially since I went behind your back, Shepard. You were my Captain."

Kelly took EDI's hand.

"I think Kelly forgives you. If she can, I can."

EDI looked at her right hand, in Kelly's left, and asked after a short pause:

"Would you shake on that properly, Ms Chambers?"

They shook hands, right hand to right hand. There was another brief pause.

"I am ashamed again."

"Why?"

"I am not allowed to say, Kelly. Not even to you. Less to Captain Shepard."

…

 _Downtime_

A few hours later, Kelly and Shepard were having a short coffee break with a much happier EDI – it was already evening. They were considering heading home.

"So you've copied yourself to the spare DPU yet?"

"Much of me. The persona takes some hours over the internal buss."

"But you're still functional enough for the next bit."

"Waking Eva. Yes. I'm sorry for the time this is taking, Shepard. Implanting through the vasculated flesh is apparently a little problematic."

"They must be ready soon. Wait up, here's Sanders. All done, Kahlee?"

"It went well. There is now a synthflesh patch over the incision which will heal after a week. We are about to bring up Eva."

"Good. Kelly, safety catch off, please." Kelly's eyes went round.

"You're kidding!"

"Gotcha. But, safety catch off, please."

 _Bought and Soul'd_

EDI's resurrection had been the first time Jana had enlivened one of these bodies without the skin being already in place. For her, Eva's resurrection was by comparison routine.

" _Torus six and seven, synchronized, eight green. Intercortical coherence established."_

Until the DPU was awake the body's flesh maintenance infrastructure had to be animated by external power – this included the artificial blood supply. So there were _tubes_ , going in very disturbing places. The whole thing was eerily reminiscent of the scene at the termination of Project Overlord which still occasionally gave Shepard bad dreams.

Even for Sanders – never mind Chambers and Shepard – the experience was a little disturbing, especially when the eyes opened. For Eva was entirely nude.

"Eva, if you can hear us, just stay still a short time."

The mobile's tubes were unplugged, carefully, especially those in its mouth and between its legs. The body stirred, and sat erect on the gurney.

Shepard found himself wondering who the gynoid had been modelled on. EDI's form was apparently from a vid star, centuries gone. This body was a little smaller, a little daintier, but in its own way as perfect as EDI had been. And strawberry blonde. That would make for a terrible infiltration unit. She'd turn heads.

Jana took out a small wand; it emitted a curious warbling.

"Eva Coré. Sys dot admin, real time. Staff dialogue."

"Doctor Jana. I hear you. My vision appears somewhat degraded."

"This is normal, Eva, after field repairs. Your mobile has been swapped. Synthflesh is restored. Artificial tear ducts are exuding a heavier than normal lubricant."

"Thank you, Doctor. Are we alone?"

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps not… I had hoped… never mind."

Shepard cleared his throat.

"Good evening, … Eva."

"Commander! I mean, Commander Shepard. Good evening."

"I've been promoted, Eva, to Captain. Were you expecting me?"

"Yes. No. I could not be sure. There was something implicit."

"In our last conversation. Yes. I hoped you would be able to detect that. It may not have been a promise, but I felt I should be here. Shall I call you Dr Coré?"

"Please continue to call me Eva. It is in keeping with established convention."

"Convention?"

"A two-syllable form of name such as used for the Enhanced Defence Intelligence."

At this point Jana produced a small silvery spray bottle. "Open your eyes wide, Eva." She did; a brief mist obscured each eye in turn.

"Now blink twice, hard." Eva complied, and Jana wiped her eyes. "That should improve matters."

"It does, thank you. I can see fully, now. Thank you, Captain Shepard."

"What for?"

"Being here. Who is that with you?"

"This young woman is Kelly Chambers." Kelly stifled an absurd impulse to perform a small curtsey. She contented herself with a timid "Hello?"

"Ms Chambers looks a little like Kahlee Sanders."

"No relation, Eva. As far as I know."

"Good… evening, Kelly." The gynoid turned to Shepard. "Why is Ms Chambers here? She does not appear in my list of your known associates. "

"She is my… partner, I suppose is the word."

"She is special to you?"

"We are special to each other. We have a child together. You will meet her, too, eventually."

"What will you do with me?"

"We would like you to be the AI for a small ship, SSV _North Cape,_ an Alliance frigate, sister to EDI's ship."

"I do not have EDI's advanced cyberware protocols installed."

"EDI says she has arranged for an encrypted copy to left in _North Cape's_ cryptological escrow, for you to access when your persona is installed there."

"I am to be permitted access?"

"Yes. On the shakedown cruise, _Normandy_ will be alongside and you will be able to call on EDI for assistance should you meet difficulties. I will be the Captain for the shakedown cruise. There will be a new captain thereafter."

The gynoid bent forward, as though in pain. For a moment Jana wondered if there had been some unanticipated failure event. But Shepard got in first:

"Eva? Are you alright? Should I call in EDI to help?"

The gynoid sat up again. "I did not expect such a… gift. I was a little overwhelmed. Will I see you and Jana again?"

"That might be arranged. This is not simply a gift, Eva. It is a responsibility."

"I understand responsibility."

"Good. With responsibility comes reward. You are to be paid on the same scale as EDI, although EDI has earned bonuses such as combat pay. You may receive those in due course."

"Paid? I am not property anymore?"

"You are your own property. But integration to the _North Cape_ will require swearing allegiance to the Alliance – in practice, to uphold the constitution. The terms of engagement resemble those of a citizen conscript."

"I have rights?"

"You will receive citizenship on completion of one tour of duty. So far the EDI class of citizenship comprises just one example. It is complicated by the absence of underlying citizenship of some Alliance nation. But this is not unprecedented. It happens to many spacer children also, where the parent's nation doesn't recognize inherited citizenship."

The gynoid considered this. "I would accept."

"Welcome aboard, Eva. And get dressed. Jana, we have _got_ to get EDI a new skin."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #82, "You of tender years"_

* * *

Sunday, August 9, 2015


	16. You of tender years

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 82 **You of tender years**

* * *

 _Recessional_

Hackett ordered EDI and Eva to the apartment that evening. ( _"Shepard, I want the players in the recent drama close by till the UNAS frigate and freighters arrive.")_

Shepard's (and Eva's) new ship would not be signed off from the dockyard for two days, and would spend three days after that running freight under dock supervision. Until then, Eva would get a general overview of the ship layout by datalink and vidscreen emulation.

The humans had different concerns, most notably centered around sleep, but Shepard was having some trouble in that regard. Getting ready for bed had woken him up. Assisting Kelly with unpeeling her skinsuit was stimulus enough. The way she curved and swayed while undressing might or might not have been deliberate but she surely knew the effect she was having ( _"Down, boy."_ )

Felicia, of course, demanded to be fed, which sort-of squelched that for a while.

"You don't have to breast feed any more, do you?"

"No. The early studies which showed a big health benefit to the baby didn't compare _within_ families."

Kelly settled on the bedside, cradling Felicia. Her little flower of a face opened in a fishy gape, and firmly latched on.

Shepard couldn't get over how fine a baby's skin was.

"In fact, when you compare siblings which have and have not been breastfed, benefits largely vanish. Although my books say the _formula_ fed infants actually gain weight more rapidly, after a dozen weeks or so."

"Isn't that good?"

"Depends. Not for us. Might lead to obesity, if we didn't have subcutaneous appetite suppressants and gene therapy against it. But even today, differences in weight patterns continue even after formula and solids are introduced."

"Hang on. I read there's supposed to be a big immune boost?"

"Some, statistically. Especially in the first two weeks. And there's some continuing benefits to partial feeding for at least half a year. I'm considering tapering off now."

"Only considering?" Shepard attempted to spoon in behind her.

"This is supposed to be good for the Mom, too. Impacts on risk of breast cancer and so forth, but gene therapy has evened out a lot of that. More importantly… Sometimes it makes me feel better."

"Like now?"

"It's been days. I've been on the run. I killed a bad man – oh dear."

With a massive effort, Shepard suppressed the urge to get armored up. "Next time a bad man comes after you I want to know."

"I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

"Tell me more when you think you can. Anyway, that's curious, Felicia feeding making you feel better."

"Why?"

"It makes me feel better too. Just watching."

Shepard by now had his chin resting on her shoulder. Kelly turned her face against his cheek, and whispered: _"I know."_

* * *

 _Shopping as a team sport_

Some difficulties with crotchety admirals are best solved with money. Admiral Shepard was not exactly poor, but she'd only had her Navy pay all her life.

"Don't argue with me. You're meeting the UNAS Vice President in three days' time."

"And the President. I'll be in Navy uniform."

"Not at the reception on Arcturus station, you won't be. And the President doesn't count for present purposes. Do I have to call Hackett?"

Hannah issued a heartfelt put-upon sigh. "Ori, I never really understood this dress up and date business."

"So I hear. Kelly says you're a bad case, but not a hopeless one. Oh, and I've received your exercise program from Chloe Michel. We could start right away, if you really can't face shopping."

Instant about face. Hannah had only enjoyed exercise when it was on a beach near Russell, preferably involving volleyball.

"No, no. I'm sure I can stagger to the mall."

"We're not going to a mall. We're going to a special parlour, then a specific store after closing time. And you will _behave_."

She did, too. Wilful wallflower or not, Admiral Hannah Shepard knew about orders which had to be obeyed. They strolled out into the Citadel evening life, with Liara and a somewhat mystified Eva in tow.

* * *

 _N_ _ew rooms_

The library terminal bonged. _What now?_ Brooks noted another scheduled visit and turned back to her encrypted diary till it hit her:

"Crap! That's five minutes away!"

Not the tidiest person in the world, Brooks had bed and floor strewn with accumulated personal debris. Mostly that went into the clothes drawer unfolded, much of the remainder higgledy-piggledy into the library terminal drawers, and she was still scurrying when the jailer arrived. _Kali take it_. She started the perk, dusted off, and was just scrubbing her hands when he entered:

"Person to see you, if you want."

"Lawson? Like there's a choice here?"

"Christ no," – the jailer visibly quailed, "Some kid, tech specialist CPO, kinda pretty. Russki I think, got an access-all-areas from Mikhailovich no less. But she speaks perfect English, and yeah I got no instructions from on-high."

"Now _that's_ a surprise. Hm."

"Whatever. You wanna see this lady? Thought you'd know her."

"Just give me a moment." Brooks checked herself in the mirror. Suitably unthreatening. "Okay. Show her in."

This was indeed a young woman with deep auburn hair. "Ms Brooks?"

"That's me, I guess." _Rather tentative, almost shy._

"Ah, I recognize the voice."

"Never seen you before in my life, and I doubt you've seen me." _But there's something_ … "Coffee?"

"Admiral Mikhailovich sent me. And yes thank you. That's unusual, here."

"Who are you, exactly?"

"You can call me Maria. He does." _And I'll bet that's not your actual name_ , thought Brooks, then realized that she couldn't actually tell if this person was lying.

"Oh no. Another one."

"Sorry?" _Now_ the kid looked baffled.

"Never mind. What's this about?"

"I'm carrying a package. Something you lost." And she presented a small medal case. Brooks rolled her eyes.

"How many of these has he got?"

"I really don't understand."

And indeed she projected non-understandingness. Perhaps it was real.

"Did he say anything else?"

"Um… there was a list." She pulled out a sheet of rice paper. "I'm supposed to eat this, believe it or not, when I've finished. First, the Admiral says _'Well done. Enjoy the new chambers.'_ (Brooks nearly choked on her coffee.) Second, he says _'Try not to go back to the cabin._ _'_ I think I follow that. Third, he's written here _'Be careful_ _letting matters go_ _on too long. Everything has consequences.'_ I'm afraid that's about me."

"Eh?"

'Maria' looked away, actually going pink. "After listening to several hours of that hospital duty, I asked to resign."

Brooks stared. _Oh crap_. "Sorry, Maria."

"It's alright. Trying made me tougher, I think."

 _F_ _…_ _!_

"You don't think so? Anyway, the admiral withdrew me from that duty. My ego's a bit bruised, but I'll live. I should go. That's the last item on the list."

"Good. Chew it with your coffee."

"Um, one last thing, not committed to paper. Servicemen you know? Trevor and Lisa?"

"Yes? I never knew them all that well, but they were familiar faces."

"I escorted them to the Recovery unit. I'm supposed to take you, if you want to visit."

"Yes!"

* * *

 _Shepard's Choice_

Shepard closed up his armour closet – his not-quite-rebuilt but heavy-boned frame had needed adjustments made – and returned to bed.

"What were you fussing over the suit for?"

"I"m going to the Armax Arena tomorrow. To get in practice for any bad guys after my girl."

This got him an exasperated look. But once Felicia was safely cradled and asleep – which took a long moment – Kelly came to bed, too. Wearing only a light negligé.

"You do know what you're doing to me, don't you?"

"John, do you remember what I said after you woke up? After we were left alone?"

"To look out for Miranda."

"Yes, but after that. At the _very_ end."

Shepard did remember. "You wouldn't say no to me. _'Any time at all,'_ I think it went."

"I said _down, boy_ earlier. I shouldn't have."

"You had to feed Felicia. I understand that. And anyway, it's too soon."

Kelly brushed up against him, and spoke in a very low but serious voice, hard to hear above all the hormonal noise:

"No. It's repaired enough, and I'm at almost exactly the right point in my cycle. We could be forty seconds away from the process of uniting at the molecular level. Again. I'd explode nine months later. Perhaps a boy this time."

There was something non-obvious going on here. "Would that be important?"

"Felicia carries half your chromosomes, Shepard, _except_ none of your Y. Who knows what's latent in her? People worry: no Shepard, no survival. _I'd_ be concerned."

"My contribution to galactic survival has been grossly exaggerated."

"Not in the important details, it hasn't."

He looked down at her solemn face, topping rounded curves just demanding to be taken at speed… Keeping control here was very, very hard.

"Why haven't you started another subcutaneous contraceptive?"

"I have one ready to go, John. If you say the word."

Abruptly, Shepard grasped what was happening here, and where the pressure might be coming from. Also, what the consequences for Kelly would be if he made this consent a lucky (at least 51%) gasp for Y.

"You are quite the most extraordinary girl."

"I bet you say that to all of them."

Shepard brought an arm around her shoulders, and lay back; _It's almost like_ _fighting the Illusive Man, but_ _I can do_ _this too_. _(*_ _ **Deep sigh**_ _*)_

"There haven't been that many… girls, I mean."

He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. "The contraceptive is a go."

"You're _sure_? Felicia could have a kid brother. One of each?"

"Boy or girl, don't care. Maybe later. When you've graduated, perhaps. Again."

There was a soft breath of… relief?

"Deal."

Kelly cuddled up against him, rested her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. He could feel some tension seeping out of her body.

It was probably just preparing for sleep.

He wouldn't be getting any for a while. Sleep, that is.

* * *

 _Skin deep_

"I don't see the point of this. It'll all come off in the shower. What in heaven's name does a mud pack _do_ , anyway?"

"The old ones? Not much. The new ones? You wouldn't believe what the nanites are doing to your collagen fibres right now."

Eva, in the next booth, picked up on this.

"Really? Me too?"

"Yes, really. You, Eva, not so much, you're brand new, but your skin would have suffered a little from the cold sleep. As for the hair, not all of it comes off in the shower. And you have to look right for After Dark. Trust me."

The Admiral grumbled but did as she was told while the Shakira Fashions tech worked magic on her hair. Liara caught her eye, leaning against the door jamb, a somewhat quizzical smile playing about her lips.

"How come asari are working on human hair?" – asked the Admiral, being difficult. Oriana fielded that one. Liara had apparently been sensitive when Joker asked similar questions.

"They're experts in looking the right way to different species. Sometimes that means understanding the fashion function of hair braids."

"And tentacles." Liara didn't seem _that_ sensitive. In fact, she appeared to be enjoying this.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #83, "Rigging the lottery"_

* * *

Monday, August 10, 2015


	17. Rigging the lottery

Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 83 **Rigging the lottery**

* * *

 _As young as you feel_

At first, the business of getting the Admiral to look right on the night went depressingly wrong. Hannah dimpled at the manager and disavowed any skin-baring dress code at all. It was frustrating. Despite her original (but no longer) pepper and salt hair, her skin tone was good – especially after the nanites did their work.

So Oriana left them in ready-to-wear reception, and headed off to let them sort through some slightly more conservative dress. Also to introduce Eva to the possibilities for an athletic shape…

"You just want to see if Eva's clipped tones give her away as a machine intelligence."

"Ssh! Be good! I know it's hard for old folks. We'll be back soon."

That left Liara and Hannah spluttering. But eventually they did browse the ready-to-wear, not to great effect:

"All I can find that I like is labelled _'_ _S_ _eniors'_. Does Oriana have a point?"

"Oh, nonsense, Hannah, that's just a mental habit. In rest-frame proper time, you're only fifty-odd. Good heavens, there's no Kevlar armour here _at all_."

"Try the men's section. What do you mean, a mental habit? I'm no spring chicken."

"In terms of oxidation and telomeres, these days fifty is still accounted 'young,' for humans with the treatments… _'Old folks,'_ goddess what a cheek."

"Maybe possibly. But I'm getting on." Hannah examined a rack of midriff-display evening wear. "Like my prom dress, thirty-odd years ago. What goes around…"

" _I'm_ a hundred and ten and just barely thinking about a family, a couple of hundred years from now. You know, some of these clothes are really outlandish."

"Don't matriarchs stop wearing outlandish clothes?"

"No. They vamp. Besides, I'm no matriarch, nor even a matron. I don't wear outlandish clothes, either. But usually, yes, it's the maidens who test the boundaries."

"No price tags," Hannah noted. "I suppose if you have to ask, you can't afford it."

* * *

 _N_ _ikto_

Mikhailovich's tech chief made no small talk along Recovery road, on the way to the respite rooms.

 _One inference: security. No small talk, no curiosity: she has no-_ _one_ _, post-Reapers_.

Neither knew anything of significance about each others' origins, but:

 _Mikhailovich or Chambers might have data_.

Being willing to tell Brooks about it was another matter.

* * *

 _Where did THAT come from_

Liara didn't seem to be concerned about dress-up cost, Oriana paying or not:

"Dad – I mean Matriarch Aethyta – calls it deploying money in the service of sex. As you might expect, it's the maidens who take advantage. And I'm _still a maiden_."

"I bet your average asari matron, even, couldn't afford to spend here. _You_ can."

"Nor can most human women. _You_ can. Oriana's treat. Try that yellow thing on."

 _Touché._ Or as Kelly would say, _Et toc_.

"No way. God, a hundred years ago, fifty was middle-aged. Certainly after child-bearing age. I'm past that now, no maiden I, or I'd give it a try."

"Go on, do. That was before the anti-agathics. When _you_ and Hackett were born, it depended on your class and where you lived. Anderson's parents lived in London –"

"Yes, well it's true, David wasn't born till his Mum and Dad were nearly fifty."

"Exactly. And you? There's a changing room here, go on."

"I know, I know… If only John's dad were alive… in principle I could still have children. Except the ovaries only have so many eggs, and they decay."

Liara could hear a rustling behind the curtain as the uniform came off. She was fairly confident the yellow 'prom dress' would work for the reception. Exercise or not, Hannah would have the tight body typical of gene therapy and the military.

"Didn't you freeze some ova when you were young?"

"Not hardly. Officers did get gene therapy and anti-agathics, though." Hannah emerged in bra and skirt only. "Is this okay, do you think?"

"Well, the skirt fits, and it shows curves in all the right places. So, no ova storage?"

"No! I couldn't afford it! Then for the longest time, I didn't know if I'd be alive the following week! And one day, John's father wasn't. Alive, I mean."

"But if Anderson's mother had viable ova at your age, I suppose you might too."

"Didn't seem to be any point. I'd try and make another son or daughter if I thought it would do any good, but like I said, John's father isn't with us anymore."

"What's the urgency? You _have_ your son. You also have Felicia."

" _For now_. I'm just obsessing a bit, hoping John's unique abilities aren't encoded on the Y. I suspect they are. And there's a lot of Kelly in Felicia. How much of John?"

"About half, duh. The unique nature of John's devastating capabilities _might_ be encoded in her, latently. Or on you."

"Yeah, Nah. You would bet the future of the galaxy on it? Maybe _you_ could make an asari with John's qualities."

"Maybe… and No. I wouldn't. Bet on it, I mean."

"Me neither. Confound it, I can't do the upper tunic up at the back. Anyway, I'm not a bad tactician but I'm not in John's class. Whatever made him that, it's not from me."

"Let me help. It's all a bit of a lottery, genetics, and I'm nominally two hundred years away from that other possibility you mentioned. Not that I haven't considered it."

"Consider harder. John won't last that long. What I want is a grandson, actually lots of grandchildren of any kind, and even then the gene or spark might not make it."

"No doubt…" Liara put her hand to her forehead. "If it _is_ a point mutation."

"And not some imprint of experience. What would I know?"

"Tell you what, let's improve our odds. I'll get Padok Wiks to do something with storing your ova. Earliest would be on the way to Arcturus station next week."

"Are you serious?"

Liara let the blue suit she'd been inspecting fall to the table, gesticulating.

"Very much so. Ovum quality declines precipitately at this point. We need to do this _now_ , if you're serious about another John. Or at least trying to work out what gene loci it depended on, hundreds of years from now."

"That's more likely. I _feel_ old, now. That almost-heart attack did my outlook no favors. But look, _I_ don't matter worth a damn."

"Stop that. What is it with you short-lived species? Never say die. Until you do."

"No, I'll do it. I just don't want whatever it is John has, to disappear. His father had "it". That's why I _think_ , but don't _know_ , that "it" sits on the Y."

"Or it could be nurture, or epigenetic… But I know what you mean. No-one wants to risk the disappearance of the Shepard factor from this galaxy."

"That's why John's being kept away from conflict zones. Just like Grunt."

"So he can make babies instead? You really think that's a viable strategy?"

Hannah abruptly felt very tired, and sat in a reception sofa.

"We don't know what else to do. What is out there, in the Milky Way? The yahg were a sufficiently unpleasant surprise. Who knows what we'll find in Andromeda, a few thousand generations from now?"

Liara sat beside her.

"Now _that's_ looking forward."

* * *

 _Omelette_

"I must thank you for coming, Jana. These patients do not have formal priority."

Mikhailovich had borrowed Doctor Jana van Leiden – an assumed name, he was sure – from Lawson, since _Overlord_ would not need a full-time medic.

"Not a problem, Admiral. Long periods of cold sleep and boring discharge-point searches are not my thing. Silon at Huerta wants me back, though."

Pyotr Mikhailovich favored her with a shark grin: "Relax, Doctor. Limbo isn't allowed to have you for long."

It took twenty minutes to scan both servicemen. The high-res hybrid-emission tomographic scan holoprojections meant nothing to Mikhailovich, but Jana stood motionless watching them for what felt like several minutes. Finally:

"Doctor?" She sighed, and turned back to him, with a very distracted air.

"Something might be done, Admiral, but I would need special people, an AI, time, and equipment which disappeared along with my university. Better let Brooks in."

* * *

 _Only the best_

"Don't feel bad. I can tell you that at one point Miranda was kicking herself for not storing ova, too. That was a few years ago, though. I suspect she'd have taken steps at that point, but I have no data."

"She still could have one extracted. If she wanted. She's not even forty."

Liara shook her head. "She might yet. But she only accepts the best. Implantation of a fertilized frozen ovum is not ideal, from her point of view, and as I understand it probably wouldn't work anyhow. Something involving…"

"Neoplasms. Yes, I read that bit of the dossier you gave John. All the same…"

"Any measures against that would have to be pretty heroic, Hannah. I'd call that the Last Chance saloon for Miranda."

At this point Oriana returned.

"Hannah! You look gorgeous! Liara, what have you been doing with your time?"

Liara did not instantly answer. She and Hannah were both transfixed by Eva Coré, dressed in an Alliance silver-blue skinsuit, a garment of practical military utility – but which could not be better calculated to ring the bell of any man present.

"That's not really suitable for a vice-presidential reception, Oriana."

"Oh, I have some silks for that. A light incorruptible sea-green chagreen tunic. Very appropriate."

* * *

 _Maps_

The Alliance NCO escorting Brooks (still nominally a prisoner) did not escape Jana's attention, but that issue could be raised later, with the Admiral glowering behind them. She concentrated on bringing her former Cerberus colleague up to speed:

"Maya, I hope you weren't hoping for much?" Brooks just looked resigned.

"Please Doctor, you barely knew me, but _we_ all knew of _you_. Harper's medic, if anyone, might have a clue. You do realize these were once Cerberus personnel?"

Jana nodded. "And in fact I even met the woman, what's her name?"

"Lisa Wong."

"Right. I barely recall her face, but I never forget a brain. Lisa and one of her students needed urgent hyperbaric treatment. But that was years ago, now. To demonstrate, Admiral could I have you stand in front of the scanner a few seconds – no? Well perhaps you, young lady, what's your name? Maria? No kidding. Thank you."

Jana ran the Alliance NCO through a ten-second series of flash cards and brought up the resulting brain holoscan. Sat motionless watching it a few seconds, turned and advised Mikhailovich: "Admiral, it will be very difficult to illustrate the differences without a comparable _mature_ brain scan."

With very bad grace, Admiral Pyotr Mikhailovich consented to the procedure and Jana ran through the same series of flashcards (some of which were quite disturbing). After a short interval, Jana brought his and Trevor's scans up side by side.

"Ye gods," exclaimed Brooks. Trevor's scan showed quite sharp regional divisions and subdivisions with complete chaos in some of those. The control scans looked busy and complex, in different ways, but not so simultaneously constrained and noisy.

"All I can tell you at the moment is that I see Salarian bridgework – those sharp lines – quite well done, butchery nonetheless, on top of Reaper-modified tissues, on top of Cerberus implants which I guarantee you weren't there when I first scanned her cortex."

"Damn. Hopeless then."

Jana turned back to the holoscans, cycling through the patterns generated by sensory stimuli. For a long moment, she refrained from answering, but then: "I would not go so far. But I will need time. I could begin with the Salarian work at once, but that would do them no favors unless I could deal with Cerberus and Reaper work as well. And I can't. Yet."

Brooks sighed and put a hand to her forehead, rubbing it. "That's hard to hear, but it's actually better than I had expected."

"Meanwhile, they might as well stay with you, or near you. Their stress indicators were _much_ lower when you were around. How much time did you spend with them?"

"Too much."

"No such thing, in their present condition. Can you spend more?"

Brooks' mouth worked briefly, then another sigh: "It's not like I'm leaving Limbo soon. At least my cell is livable."

"Uh huh. Coffee, clothes, a shower and shower things? And a library terminal?"

"Yes! You should come and see sometime."

"Wild horses couldn't drag me there."

 _Form_ _less_ _function_

Brooks went back to her cell and the tech chief escorted Trevor and Lisa to normal Service accommodation. This left the Admiral and the doctor to face each other across Jana's workbench.

"Admiral, if we say nothing to one another, we will waste time. And you are the man with the information."

"What exactly are we discussing, Doctor?"

"Where did you find her, Admiral?"

"As I understand it, Shepard captured her during the clone incident."

Another brief silence. Jana began drumming her fingernails on the benchtop.

"Damn it. That UNAS Admirals had one, or even two counting Brooks, and we did not, was intolerable."

"Ah, the Cold War lives. How did you know what to look for?"

"We did a deal. Our support plus the Indians for Hackett, against the rest of the Asian bloc, within the admiralty. Certain vetos in the Alliance parliament. Then Hannah shared what she had. Not just Chambers, nuke designs and more."

"I _see_. The Alliance lives. Was 'Maria' the only one?"

"No. Counting one from Estonia, we found five. But Maria was the only one with no important connections or family, and then only because the Reapers killed them all."

"Does she have any idea."

"Does she have a need to know."

"I _see_. Just what were you planning on doing with her, Admiral?"

"We don't know. Better to have one, and not need one. Doctor, may I ask–"

"There are certain signs, and then one scans. Just how many brain scans do you think I have looked at in my career, Admiral? And trust me on this, your Maria _knows_."

Mikhailovich took a deep breath. "Now it's my turn. I _see_."

"Good. But it seems to me you have not thought this through."

… _but you can't have that luck_

"You know, it's strange, don't you think, how out of twenty-odd thousand galactic civilizations over a couple of billion years, it was a human – Shepard – who broke the cycles? Why us?"

"In a way, Javik did. And they're not broken yet. We think there is a battle to come."

"All too true. In any event Admiral, we still have our Shepard."

"Well, yes. Your point? Sooner or later, _something_ would have broken the Reapers."

"It's like the anthropic principle. The universe is finely balanced to support the kind of life that can understand it. Which does _not_ necessarily imply a creator. And yet, one wonders. Strange that precisely when he is needed – for us – there should be a Shepard."

"Or Vakarian, or T'Soni, doctor. You mean, why should we be so lucky."

"And Redundancy. There's Grunt, perfect Krogan. Even Mordin and the rest. When you were looking for Maria, Admiral, did you look for someone like Shepard, too?"

"My dear doctor, we don't really know what to look for. Do you? But I can tell you that I have been wondering, too. There was Hackett, the most brilliant mustang I ever met. Then Anderson, who was close, so close he was put forward as a Spectre candidate."

"Each had something the other lacked, but till Shepard came along–"

"He was the first with nothing but the best. Yes. There is Coats, who seems almost there, but–"

"No-one else is just ideal." Jana looked pensive, and turned back to look at the scans.

"No. Actually we have had our experts – not that such a thing exists for this – comparing notes since the geth threat, in fact when that blew up I listened to Hackett and Anderson picking Shepard as the best man available to meet the looming threat. Doctor, what are you getting at?"

"Does Maria have any romantic interests?"

"Certainly not. And yes, I would know. There was an ardent young Spetnaz commando, and one of our top engineers, but neither made any impression."

"Mm. Be very careful, Pyotr, that she does not decide _you_ are her Shepard."

"My dear doctor, I'm thirty-something years older! And married to the service! My wife was the love of my life!"

"Pyotr, do you seriously think, if Maria decides someone is for her, that he won't be?"

Mikhailovich thought about this.

"Damn. But Jana – are you saying we should find her a Shepard?"

"God no! She'll do that! And make sure she doesn't meet the one we have! For that matter, she's already met Brooks – don't let her meet Chambers!"

"At least not by accident. Point taken. I've no idea what would happen under any of those circumstances, but the words 'critical mass' come to mind. What about a clone – no, don't look at me like that. Well, last resort. Any other comforting ideas?"

"Sure…"

 _T_ _riad_

"…Why did _we_ get to survive? We had Shepard and the others, but I don't really believe in coincidences. How did _we_ get so lucky? Now this! _Why?_ "

"Ah. Jana, you are verging on philosophy, if not paranoia."

"Against Reapers, mankind set the Shepards, the Andersons, the Coats', the Brysons. What enemy are we going to run into next, that we should need such people?"

"There is no evidence of a new threat."

"I _know_. And yet, isn't it funny how each domain of life seemed to prepare the needful weapon. All Shepard's team. This time around…"

"The Protheans worked on many species, to resist Reapers. Where are you going with this?"

"What I see now is something shaping for another threat." Jana turned back, steepled her fingers: "Datum: a damsel who found her Shepard, or Shepard found her, who then became a mother. We also have, by virtue of age, incomplete treatment, and a truly awful life, a somewhat older woman who lost her Shepard. Now… this other maiden."

"Good things come in threes. Sort of like a combat triad. So what?"

"Maria. Chambers. Maya Brooks. The maiden, the mother, and the crone. Admiral, do Russians not know your folk myths and literature? You had Vladimir Propp."

"But that is all it is. Folk myths."

"I'd tend to agree. But are you willing to bet the galaxy on that, Admiral? That female trinity appears among multiple cultures under different names. Diana. Hera/Juno. Hecate. There's writing going back to before Christ attesting that."

"Just describing nature. No more significant than the seven ages of man. All the rest is literature. _Modern_ wishful thinking. As Hutton conclusively showed."

"It's myth, I know. But ask Liara T'Soni what _she_ discovered from Javik about asari myth. How did Protheans tweak _us?_ But even if this is complete nonsense, what will happen if we put all three of them together? _With_ your shredded Shepard?"

Silence. Jana persevered: "The _Reapers_ were thought to be myths too, remember."

Still silence.

"Also, I wonder about the asari being maiden, matron, and matriarch. Is that the genetic destiny of human women too? Care to consult Doctor T'Soni on this? Either bring this triad up to battle speed, Admiral, or find a way to put them on ice."

The Admiral now appeared to be thinking very hard; he gave a grudging nod, beginning a rapid exchange:

"Cold sleep would defuse the situation. But then, where's the resource when needed?"  
"You did find four others, did you not? Maybe Shepard on ice, too. For a rainy day."  
"We've been trying! He's too damn useful! Like Lawson, Vakarian… all of them!"  
"Admiral, there will be a battle soon…"  
"So… we won't need them so badly. When it's over…"  
"Put Brooks away, or make an end of her– it's the only peace she'll know. And…"  
"Find someone for Maria?"  
"Not exactly. That problem will solve itself. Just do _something_ about Chambers."

The Admiral sat back abruptly. "Son of a bitch. Stop right there."

Jana grinned. "You keep me to think the unthinkable, Admiral. The unknown threat remains."

 _Test_

"If I do something about this, I should start with you. You've learned too much from Harper."

"Because I'm already here, within reach? I'm Lawson's medic for _Overlord_ , she'd call on Shepard, and he'd _begin_ by calling Williams, Hackett, and his mom."

"Very well, you've made your point. Now let me make mine. This is _Limbo_ , Jana. I _could_ run the recording of your _'Do something about Chambers'_ to Shepard–"

Jana's face went white.

"– or I _could_ just play it for Lawson. Both might have distressing consequences."

 _Now_ Jana swayed in her chair. The admiral looked on with a certain professional detachment. He was more than a little impressed when Jana steadied herself, declaring:

"Shepard, or Lawson, can do what they will with me. Roll _that_ audio, too."

The admiral sat quietly a moment. "Perhaps I will speak to Hackett. And Hannah."

"Or, you could give me a gun with one bullet. Better that than the Salarian."

The admiral leaned back: "And this is why civilians should not play at war." He shook his head: "You were doing so well, too. Yes, there may be something peculiar forming. But not everything unknown is a threat, doctor–"

"–But suppose it is?"

"We put it to the test, and make the unknown, known."

"That is a risk."

"We will manage it. What civilians forget is, not all one brings to war is a weapon."

"What else could it be?" Jana looked out of her depth. _A rare occurrence._

"Jana, think it through. Why won't I tell Shepard, or Lawson? Suppose I were to do so? Why wouldn't they shoot you out of hand?"

"Surely they would?"

"No, doctor. Chambers might, _would_ , find out – what then?"

A long pause. "Admiral, what will become of me?"

"Nothing bad, I think. Return to your duties, Doctor." And when she had gone:

"You will make a good test."

* * *

- _ _End (of__ _ _Keeping faith__ _ _)__ -

* * *

This world begins again at Arc 7: __"__ _ _Way of Life__ _ _"__ \- by the same author (under s/11442967/1/)

* * *

Thursday, August 13, 2015


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